Romola Clifton

Clifton was born in Perth, Western Australia, daughter of Nancy Millicent Clifton, née Hughes (1911–1989) and Marshall Waller Gervase Clifton (1903–1975), a well-known architect and artist of considerable ability.[1] She grew up in the Perth suburb of Mosman Park and attended St Hilda's School.

In 1951 she won the Claude Hotchin Jubilee junior art prize,[2] and in the Youth Art Exhibition following year her painting of the Fremantle Harbour was accepted for the International Junior Red Cross exhibition in Toronto, Canada.[3]

In 1953 two of her watercolors were accepted for an exhibition called "Young Artists of the Commonwealth", at which Rolf Harris was also represented.[4]

She studied at the Slade School of Art 1953–1955[5] after which she studied at the University of Western Australia with the aim of becoming a medical artist. She won the Claude Hotchin Art Prize for watercolor in 1956 (her father won it in 1951). She had her first solo exhibition at the Skinner Galleries in 1959.

She married fellow-artist Ross Morrow and lived in Sydney. They divorced and she married again, to poet and arts administrator Ian Templeman and moved to Canberra, where he had a position with the National Library of Australia.[6]

In 1978 she painted a portrait of Paul Hasluck which is held in the Historic Memorials Collection at Australian Parliament House.[7]

She was at one stage a director and art consultant to Molonglo Press,[8] a private concern founded by Ian Templeman.

She was a close friend and portraitist of Canberra artist Jan Brown (1922–2022).[9]

Clifton's papers are held in the National Library of Australia.[10]