Jessie Laver Evans served as secretary for the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors. She studied with John Mather, painting watercolours and oils including works painted en plein air in a manner reminiscent of Charles Douglas Richardson and Emma Minnie Boyd. She produced competent and ‘sensitive’ portraits and landscapes, often inspired by coastal scenes.

(Spring Pastures, Heidelberg) is typical of the Heidelberg School of Australian Impressionism, with a focus on capturing a particular moment, evoking a season and capturing the light of a specific time of day. Here the symphony of green dominates through to the high horizon line where the clouds are tinged with a hint of pink/purple hue. The undulation of the hills, the ridge of dark green trees to the right and the darker zig-zag of wild grass lead our eye through the composition whilst the path and cows dotted in a sunlit pasture add detail and interest.

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