Background
She was born on the west coast of Ireland at Westcliff House, County Galway. The youngest of six, she spent most of her youth at Creggane Manor, Rosscarbery, near Cork where her father, William Robert Starkie Justice of the Peace (1824–1897), was a resident magistrate, who had also taught himself to play the violin. When she was sixteen her mother, Frances Maria Starkie, shut up the house, put her husband into rooms in Cork and set off with Edyth on a grand tour of Europe, lasting two to three years.
Education
In 1884 she studied art in Paris at the Académie Julian under Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Tony Robert-Fleury.
Career
In Cassel, Edyth became engaged to a Prussian officer, Colonel von West-, at Potsdam, causing a major scandal when she finally broke it off because she couldn"t stand the stiff Prussian attitudes. Her fiancé would insist on challenging any man whom Edyth so much as smiled at in the street to a duel. In 1895, after a brief return to Ireland she moved to London.
Her mother joined her after the death of her father in 1897.
Membership
Arthur, a fellow artist living at 6 Wychcombe Studios, had become a member of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) and was afraid other members might mock his fantasy pictures in the company of more traditional watercolorists at RWS exhibitions. She was a member of the International Society. Her exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts in London included Lilla (1897), Saint Cecilia (1898) and Pippa Passes (1899).
