Olive Edis (1876-1955), Photographer

(Mary) Olive Edis (Mrs Galsworthy)

Sitter in 17 portraits
Artist associated with 418 portraits
One of five daughters of architect Sir Robert Edis. Olive Edis opened her first studio with her sister Katherine in early the 1900s in Sheringham, Norfolk specialising in fisherman and local nobilities. She later had studios in Farnham, Surrey and Ladbroke Grove, London. Edis worked with Sepia Plationotypes and pioneered colour autochrome portraits from 1912 onwards. Her sitters included Shaw, Hardy, Balfour, and Mrs Pankhurst. Olive Edis patented her own autochrome viewer. She photographed British Women's services and the battlefields of France and Flanders 1918-19 for the Imperial War Museum. She married Edwin Henry Galsworthy, a cousin of the novelist John Galsworthy, 1928.