‘Buttercup, Buttercup’ (1895) by Etty Gottschalck. In a private collection.
Henrietta (Etty) Gottschalck (1876 – 1970) enjoyed some modest success with her watercolours, particularly at the end of the 19th, and start of the 20th centuries, when her artwork was displayed at shows in London and in the Yorkshire region.
Henrietta, (or Etty, as she signed her paintings), was the second of five children of Sigmund Gottschalck and Louisa (nee Swallow). The family lived at 1 Victoria Park, Shipley, and Sigmund, originally from Hanover, was a commission agent. He died in 1884 and by 1891 the widowed Louisa was living with her children at 15 Victoria Park, Shipley.
Henrietta attended the Salts Girls High School and in 1890 gained a ‘distinguished’ award in drawing in the
Cambridge art examination and one of her watercolours were featured in the 1895 Shipley School of Art Annual Exhibition. In 1896 she gained a three year scholarship to continue her art studies at the National Art Training School (NATS) (later the Royal College of Art) in London, and one of her paintings was purchased by the NATS as an exemplar of good art student work.
Henrietta continued with her painting and her artwork was exhibited in 1899 at a show of the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) and in the early years of the 20th century at the New Gallery, London, the Art Union of London, and locally at Cartwright Hall.
She also exhibited in 1905 a number of watercolours at Messrs. Matthew and Brooke’s Bijou Gallery, Bradford. The Shipley Times reported of these, that her paintings were of the ‘ broad-school type, and should appeal to both the connoisseur and collector’, and that, ‘Miss Gottschalck’s pastoral studies constitute particularly clever work, and already the collection is creating a good deal interest in local art circles.’
By 1911 Henrietta, her mother, and a brother, were living at 24 Wellington Crescent, Shipley, and Henrietta, by now in her mid-thirties, was describing herself in the census of that year as an ‘artist’. In 1913, Louisa died and in 1916 Henrietta and her brother, Arthur, changed their surnames from Gottschalck to Swallow, their mother’s maiden name, most likely in response to anti-German hostility in World War One.
After her mother’s death, Henrietta continued to live with Arthur at their Wellington Crescent home, but by the 1921 census she had dropped her profession of artist for one of ‘house duties’. She never married and died in 1970
(With thanks to researcher, Colin Coates, Saltaire Village Website, for his help in compiling this profile of the artist.)