Ninette Dutton


Ninette Clarice Florence Dutton OAM was an Australian artist, broadcaster and author.

Early life and education

Ninette Trott was born in Adelaide in 1923, the granddaughter of English portrait and landscape painter George A. J. Webb. Her father's family operated a dental practice, and her mother was a matron. She had two younger sisters.
Trott attended Creveen Girls School, North Adelaide, and Woodlands before studying social science at the University of Adelaide. In the 1950s, she studied at the Ruskin School of Art.

Career

Trott began her career driving in the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force.
In the late 1940s, Dutton set up an art studio in Adelaide Hills, primarily focusing on "firing painted designs on tiles".
During the 1950s, she worked in the Botany Library at Oxford.
While living briefly in Kansas, Dutton began enamelling on copper. Over the following four decades, her enamel works were widely collected, and she wrote Beautiful Art of Enamelling in 1966. Her works feature in collections across Australia, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Orange Regional Gallery.
Over the 1970s, 80s and 90s she published books and delivered radio programmes on cooking, flowers, gardening and the seasons, and for some years she wrote a column titled 'The Passionate Gardener' in the Advertiser, Adelaide.
Dutton was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 1994.

Personal life

Trott married Australian writer and historian Geoffrey Dutton in 1944. The couple lived in Melbourne, where they associated with Angry Penguins members, including Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, Max Harris.
In 1946, the couple moved to Oxford, where Geoffrey studied English at Magdalen College, after which they purchased Ford Pilot and drove back to Australia. They settled in Adelaide Hills, with Geoffrey teaching at the University of Adelaide and Ninette focusing on her artwork.
The following decade, the couple travelled extensively and adventurously through Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
By 1962, the Duttons had two children and briefly lived in Kansas. However, following the death of Geoffrey's mother-in-law, Emily Dutton, in 1962, the Dutton family lived at Anlaby Station, the Duttons' family property near Kapunda.
In early 1968, she saved the life of Patrick White, a friend, by holding on to his arm when he fell into a blowhole on Kangaroo Island.
Anlaby Station sold in 1977, after which the Duttons moved to Eden Valley, where Ninette built a studio and served on boards in the local community, including the Arts Grants Advisory Committee and as a Trustee of the Board of Carrick Hill.
Following her divorce from Geoffrey Dutton, she moved to Canberra in 1997 and to Leura in 2002.
She died in 2007.

Family

George Webb married Christina Elizabeth "Crissie" Lake, daughter of John and Jane Ann Lake and step-daughter of George Rolfe on 4 October 1892.
Their children were:

Written Works

*