Mary Elizabeth Tripe

Mary Elizabeth Tripe, generally known as Mollie Tripe, was a New Zealand painter and art teacher born in Christchurch in 1870 and who died in Wellington in 1939. She matters chiefly for her portraits of leading New Zealanders and for her early role in the country's art teaching and institutions.

The daughter of Edward Richardson, a Member of Parliament for Kaiapoi, she trained in Christchurch, at the Canterbury School of Art and at the new Wellington School of Design, then led by Arthur Dewhurst Riley. She graduated in 1890 with a teaching certificate and gained a master's certificate in 1894. From 1889 she taught drawing at the school, alongside James Nairn and Mabel Hill. After her marriage to the solicitor Joseph Albert Tripe in 1900 she left the school but continued giving private lessons.

She exhibited in New Zealand, London, the Paris Salon and elsewhere from the 1880s. She began as an Impressionist but gradually moved toward a more realistic manner grounded in strong draughtsmanship. She became known especially for portraits of figures such as Sir Robert Stout, Sir Frederic Truby King and the painter Dolla Richmond. In 1893 she became the first woman appointed to the council of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, and she also influenced the founding of the National Art Gallery of New Zealand and its portrait collection.

Her legacy is visible in the training of pupils such as Maud Winifred Sherwood and in her contribution to the institutional life of New Zealand art. She was awarded the Coronation Medal in 1937.