Name

Guenda Abbott

Other names

Bainton, Guenda (née).

Culture

Australian | English

Gender

Female

Birth date

15 March 1906

Birth place

Stocksfield-on-Tyne, England View on map Close map

Death date

2005

Death Place

Australia View on map Close map

Movements

Australia from 1934

Occupations

Artist (theatre) | Printmaker | Teacher

Summary

Worked: Australia (NSW). Etchings, Screenprints, Woodcuts

Context

Australia

Address

• Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Biography

From about 1922 Guenda Bainton studied painting at the Newcastle School of Art (an affiliate of Durham University), England, then from 1928 worked as an art teacher. Her first prints, etchings and woodcuts, were done at Newcastle during this period and at the Royal College in London shortly after. In London her teachers included Frank Medworth.

In 1934 her father, the musician Edgar Leslie Bainton, after being awarded an Honorary D.Mus from Durham University, travelled to Australia in order to take up his appointment as Director of the New South Wales Conservatory of Music, Guenda also emigrated to Australia with a letter of introduction to Syd Long from one of her London teachers (Professor Osborne or Richard(?) Austin). Guenda brought one etching plate with her to continue her printmaking but Syd Long told her she could work on the plate at his school but he or one of his assistants would do the printing, with this she lost interest in etching. Over the next few years or she produced several woodcuts and etchings, signed Guenda Bainton, and in 1934 exhibited an etching with the Australian Painter -Etcher’s and Graphics Arts Society.

Shortly after her arrival in Sydney she was appointed to Ascham School, an independent, non-denominational school for girls, as an art teacher, a position she held until 1970. In 1940 she married fellow artist Harold Abbott. Over the years Harold and Guenda produced a few screenprints with Guenda designing and cutting, and Harold helping with the printing. They also produced linocut christmas cards for their friends. Few of Guenda’s prints have survived.

[Gregory Heath and Roger Butler, Australian Artist-Printmakers 1870-1970. Canberra, 19 December 2025. Information based in part on Gregory Heath’s, notes of interview with Guenda Abbott, June 1988.]

Last Updated

18 Dec 2025