Born: 10 June 1888, Ireland
Died: 30 August 1974
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Lila Minnie Bagwell
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Lawrence William White and Pauric J. Dempsey. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Lilla Minnie (Bagwell) Perry (1888–1974), landscape painter, was born 10 June 1888 at Marlfield. Raised in Marlfield house, she married (4 October 1915) John Perry (1875–1965), MC (1918); a captain in the merchant navy, he served in the South African war with Kitchener’s Horse, and in the first world war with the Royal Field Artillery. They had three sons and one daughter. Their home on the Perry estate at Newcastle, Co. Tipperary, was burned by republicans in June 1921, a fortnight before the truce; thereafter, they resided at Birdhill, Clonmel, a property neighbouring Marlfield.
While Lilla probably received some formal art training, and spent several months in Italy in her youth, it seems that she was largely self-taught. Working almost entirely in watercolours, she exhibited regularly over many years (1908–70) with the Water Colour Society of Ireland (WCSI), with whom she showed over 100 works, initially under her maiden name, then as Lilla Perry. She first exhibited at the London Salon in 1909, and was represented at exhibitions of the Society of Women Artists, London (1911–12). Though she painted throughout her life, she was most prolific in the 1920s and 1930s. She showed five works at the RHA, all in 1927–30, and exhibited with the Munster Fine Art Club (1933) and the Ulster Academy of Arts, Belfast (1937). While her subjects changed little – she favoured views of rivers, trees, and gardens, largely at Birdhill, Marlfield, and other locations around Clonmel – her style developed from an early attention to close detail executed in muted colours, to the brighter palette and looser brushwork of her later work. At the WCSI centenary exhibition (1970) she was represented by ‘Kilmanahan castle near Clonmel’. She died at Marlfield on 30 August 1974. Most of her work is in private collections; several paintings, including ‘Clonmel and the River Suir’ (1931) and ‘Knocklofty bridge’ (1940), are in the South Tipperary County Museum, Clonmel.