Kathleen Margaret Sauerbier was born in the Adelaide suburb of Brighton on 21 January 1903 to John James Sauerbier and Mary Anne Louisa (née Locke). She was the eldest of four children (John, Louis and Gladys) and they were third generation German settlers.
Kathleen was educated at St Peters Girls School in Adelaide She loved to paint, read, write, listen to music and was a keen nature lover. She attended the recently opened School for Fine Arts in Tynte Street, North Adelaide (1923-25) studying under the principal Frederick Christian Britton. One of her fellow students was Horace Trenerry and one of her tutors there was Frederick Millward Grey who influenced her to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London (1925-27). Kathleen was heavily influenced by Modernist Art during this time, travelling to Europe and immersing herself in art galleries and museums.
Kathleen returned to South Australia in January 1928 and exhibited some of her works in 1930 and 1931 at the South Australian Society of Arts (SASA) Gallery exhibitions, holding her first solo exhibition in 1934. From 1932 she visited Port Willunga staying in a 2-storey building that was then known as “The Residential Café”, formerly the Seaview Hotel. Her close artist friend Horace Trenerry also moved to Port Willunga in 1934 and you can see the influence that Kathleen had on Trenerry’s work. She introduced him to a freer more expressive style of painting and his palette took on the muted colours that Kathleen favoured.
Kathleen met her future husband John Baldwyn Bryce, an industrial chemist, in Melbourne in 1935 and they married on 23 Dec 1937. They lived in South Yarra and later Donvale and they purchased the Residential Café in 1940. She became a member of The Contemporary Arts Society (CAS) in Melbourne and started designing textiles and jewellery. Tragically though, in 1947, Kathleen was seriously burnt at her Port Willunga property when a kerosene fridge exploded in front of her. Kathleen had a one-person retrospective in Adelaide in 1984 at The Beehive Corner Gallery and her last exhibition was 2 years later in Aldinga in 1986. She died aged 88 years on 11 March 1991 and she was buried in Donvale, with her husband.
Kathleen Sauerbier’s artworks are part of the permanent collections of the following institutions: National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the University of Western Australia and well as many private collections.
Image – Kathleen Sauerbier, Jetty ramp and Howe’s fishing lookout, c.1935, oil on canvas, 53.5 h cm, 65.5 w cm, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 2012. On loan to Waverley Park Homestead (2024-2026)
