Born: 6 December 1870, Ireland (assumed)
Died: 10 July 1949
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: NA
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Bridget Hourican. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Ross, Florence Agnes (1870–1949), artist, was born 6 December 1870 in Ulster, youngest of the three children of the Rev. William Steward Ross and Agnes Ross (née Traill). Soon after her birth, the family moved from the North to live with their maternal grandmother, Mrs Annie Traill, at 3 Orwell Park, Rathgar, Dublin. Another daughter of Mrs Traill, the widowed Mrs Kathleen Synge, lived with her family, next door at 4 Orwell Park. Florence and her cousin, John Millington Synge, were close childhood companions who shared an interest in natural history and kept a communal notebook, where they would write up their observations and draw animals. Synge recorded in his autobiography his calf-love for his cousin in what he described as the happiest period of his life. When they grew up they were less close, although Florence and Synge’s sister were the only attendants at his graduation from TCD. Florence went to live with the Synges, now in Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire), Co. Dublin, in December 1891, after the death of her mother, and spent many summers with them at Castle Kevin, Annamoe, Co. Wicklow, where she sketched. In 1895 she went out to Tonga in the Friendly Islands to act as housekeeper to her brother, a doctor. After eleven years abroad, which included visits to New Zealand, to Australia, and to cousins in Argentina, she returned to Ireland in 1906.
The rest of her life she devoted to painting, mostly watercolours and landscapes. Her most frequent inspiration was Wicklow, where she spent much time with her cousin Elizabeth Synge, but she also went on painting expeditions to Antrim, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, and Kerry. On the Great Blasket she sketched the ‘king’s house’ in which Synge had stayed. From 1927 to 1948 she exhibited at the Watercolour Society of Ireland, showing a total of about ninety paintings, which were typically priced between £3 and £4. The Belfast Art Society and the Ulster Academy of Arts also displayed her pictures, and she exhibited eight paintings at the RHA between 1929 and 1938. Her works were invariably landscapes, often with buildings in them. During these years she moved between Greystones, Co. Wicklow; Clonlea, Enniskerry; and various addresses in Dublin. She ran a sketching club near Glendalough. Her final home was in Blackrock, Co. Dublin. She died 10 July 1949 at the Royal City of Dublin hospital.
She has received little critical attention; however, examples of her work can be found in the South Tipperary county museum and art gallery, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, and the Waterford municipal collection.