Exhibition Tour - Quiet Corners: The Art of AME Bale

Join this curator-led tour of the Town Hall Gallery exhibition ‘Quiet Corners: The Art of AME Bale’. Learn more about the artist from art historian Dr Juliette Peers and gain a deeper understanding of the artworks on display.

Dr Juliette Peers is a leading Australian art historian who provides historical support to the Sheila Foundation for Women in the Arts, and is a life member of the Women's Art Register and the Melbourne Society of Women painters and Sculptors. She taught design history at RMIT for 35 years, in particular researching Australian women artists from impressionist to modernist over three decades, consistently presenting serious innovative research into women around the Heidelberg School. 

Free, registrations encouraged. 

About the exhibition

AME Bale (1875–1955) was one of Australia’s most accomplished painters of flowers, celebrated for her Tonalist mastery and precise control of light, tone and composition. Her evocative floral still lifes combine careful observation with a poetic sensitivity, transforming roses, tulips and zinnias into works of subtle beauty and balance.

Bale trained at the National Gallery Art School under Frederick McCubbin and L. Bernard Hall, later refining her practice with Max Meldrum, whose tonal theories shaped her approach to light and atmosphere. Over a prolific career, she developed a disciplined, consistent vision evident not only in flowers but also in portraits, interiors and landscapes. Bale was widely recognised for her technical skill and sustained commitment to her art within Melbourne’s professional circles.

Central to Bale’s practice was her long residence in Kew, where domestic interiors, quiet streets and surrounding parklands became recurring motifs. Her legacy continues through the AME Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize, supporting emerging artists working in the traditional styles that defined her career.

Following several recent exhibitions that have brought renewed attention to historically overlooked women artists, ‘Quiet Corners: The art of AME Bale’ presents more than 100 of her finest paintings and works on paper from public and private collections. Presented in the City of Boroondara, where she lived and worked for much of her life, the exhibition offers the rare opportunity to encounter Bale’s meticulous tonal practice, compositional skill and lasting contribution to Australian art. 

Image credit: Visitors at the official opening of ‘Quiet Corners: The Art of AME Bale’, Town Hall Gallery, 2026.