Camille Souter

Who is Camille Souter?

Camille Souter, born Betty Pamela Holmes, is a painter. Though born in Northampton, England, in 1929, she was raised in Ireland. She was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 2008.

She originally trained as a nurse and began painting during the 1950s while recovering from illness. Her name '"Camille" is actually a nickname given to her by first husband Gordon Souter in reference to the consumptive heroine of Alexandre Dumas' La Dame aux Camélias.

Camille Souter captures light and color, texture and form in intimate almost abstract paintings of unexpected subjects, her subject matter has included landscapes, still lifes and slaughterhouses. In Circa 89 in a review of Camille Souter's joint show with Nano Reid, Vona Groarke writes: "Camille Souter's paintings have a statuesque elegance to them, even when the subject is something as banal as silage bags. She is an artist who avoids prettiness while seeking beauty."

The Bank of Ireland held her painting Over the Bog, created in 1962. This painting was donated by the bank in 2008 to the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

The Douglas Hyde Gallery held a retrospective of her work in 1980.

She lives on Achill Island.