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Telephone: 0131 226 6932 or 0845 388 5879
46 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 3NH, Scotland

Biography and current catalogue for

Florence St John Cadell (1877-1966) 

Born in Australia on 14th August 1877, a distant cousin of F C B Cadell, she relocated with her family to Edinburgh while very young. Her parents were George Cadell (1844-1909) and Mary Amelia Morison nee McCrae (1844-1924). The middle of three daughters, at an early age she and her elder sister, Agnes Morison Cadell (1873-1958) began painting seriously. Both girls specialised initially in animal studies, particularly goats. She began exhibiting in Edinburgh and Perth in the 1920s, and later came to specialise in sun filled landscapes and market scenes. She and Agnes rebuilt Whinmill Brae House by the Water of Leith, redesigned around a large studio. The two sisters subsequently went to live and paint at Crail, a picturesque fishing village in the East Neuk of Fife, by the entrance to the Firth of Forth. She exhibited regularly at the Royal Scottish Academy between 1900 and 1965, one of the few artists whose output increased with age. An oil portrait (1959) by her of her close friend and fellow painter Wendy Wood, is held by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Wood, who trained with Sickert, was a founder member and campaigner of the Scottish Nationalist Party. She and Cadell shared the studio at Whinmill Brae.

She died in 1966, aged 89.


Exhibited RSA (25), RSW (1), GI (25), L (1) & AAS 1933-1937.