Alice Maud Fanner NEAC SWA (1865–1930), later Alice Maud Taite, was a British landscape and marine painter in oils and watercolours. She was elected to the NEAC in the 1900s.

Fanner was born in Lambeth, which at the time was within Surrey’s boundaries, and for many years lived in the Chiswick area of London.

 

She studied at the Richmond School of Art and attended the Slade School of Art in London. She studied under Julius Olsson in St Ives, Cornwall, and also later in Paris. Like Olsson, Fanner often painted the sea, the coast, yachting, and sailing scenes.


She delighted in painting the coasts of Kent (especially Ramsgate and Pegwell Bay) and Essex. She painted the yachting at Cowes on the Isle of Wight on a number of occasions.

 

In 1890, in Kingston-upon-Thames, she married the Australian-born Arthur Edward Taite and in the early years of their marriage, lived in Twickenham and then in Datchet by the Thames. During that time she taught art at the Richmond School of Art where she had previously studied.


Her husband was a merchant dealing primarily with suppliers in South America and it appears that the artist accompanied him on a visit to Brazil where she painted in Rio de Janeiro. She also worked extensively in France, the Italian Lakes, and Cape Town, South Africa. She also visited the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, USA where her work was awarded a gold and two silver medals.


She exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy from 1897, and also at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Hibernian Academy, the New English Art Club, the Glasgow Institute, the Paris Salon, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and the Society of Women Artists of which she was also a member.


Her work is held in several public collections including Birmingham Museums, Brighton & Hove Museums & Galleries, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Dudley Museums, Kingston History Centre, Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum, Ferens Art Gallery Hull, and the London Transport Museum.

 

After leaving Datchet she lived in south-west London before moving to Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex. She died in October 1930 and was buried in the churchyard at Creeksea in Essex.

 

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