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Eliza Thurston (5 August 1807 – 3 February 1873) was a nineteenth-century English-Australian fine artist and teacher, best known for her snowy landscapes, and watercolours of Sydney Harbour. Her artistic works were exhibited in England, Paris, Sydney and Melbourne and won many awards.

Background and early life
Eliza Thurston was born Eliza West on 5 August 1807 in the town of Bath, County of Somerset, England. Her father was artist John West and her mother was Anne (née Calder). John West was a painter and lithographer in the Bath district. Training in fine arts like her father, Thurston began developing her artistic skills at an early age alongside her career of teaching drawing and painting.

Eliza married auctioneer John Thurston in 1830. Together they had six children. When her husband died from tuberculosis in 1846, Eliza and her children looked for opportunities in the Australian colonies.

Career in Australia
Arriving in Sydney in 1853, Thurston sought to support her family through her teaching and sale of her artistic works. She advertised her professional services in the colonial press as "Mrs. Thurston, Professor of Drawing and Painting in every style". Financial security was precarious for many artists, especially female artists. By 13 December 1855 Thurston was declared bankrupt with debts extending to suppliers of her painting materials, booksellers Waugh & Cox.

Overcoming these financial challenges, Thurston continued painting, exhibiting in 1857 Victorian Fine Arts Society show in Melbourne, and the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition. Her ambitions were not limited to the colonies but remained international. She submit works to the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition, earning a silver medal for four "opaque watercolours of Australian Scenery".

Thurston's best-known works were picturesque watercolours depicting Sydney Harbour, some of which were enhanced with the additional decoration of frames with Australian shells and sea plants.

Key works
Victoria Pass, Blue Mountains (1861), National Museum of Australia

Shoreline (date) Art Gallery of New South Wales

View of Sydney Harbour (c.1864), gouache on paper with seaweed and shells, State Library of New South Wales collection entry

Sydney Harbour, (c.1864), watercolour, 8 in. x 10 3/8 in. oval, State Library of New South Wales collection entry

Distant view of Sydney (date unknown), watercolour, 6 1/2 in. x 9 5/8 in. oval, State Library of New South Wales collection entry

Capertee Valley from Crown Ridge on the Sydney–Bathurst Road (1868), State Library of New South Wales collection entry

Death and legacy
Eliza Thurston died in 1873 and was buried in the Church of England section of Balmain Cemetery (now Pioneers Memorial Park, Leichhardt) in Sydney. Many of her works have not survived, so the few held by public galleries and institutions are greatly valued.