Deirdre Bean

Deirdre Bean

PhD (Natural History Illustration), BA (fine art and visual culture).

Deirdre is a Newcastle-based artist practicing for 35 years in watercolour and oil painting. Watercolour has been the foundation of Deirdre’s art practice. She was a finalist in the Waterhouse Prize twice, and three-times medalist at the Royal Horticultural Society in London. She was commissioned in 2013 to paint the flora of Christmas Island for Australia Post. Deirdre’s watercolour paintings are held in Kew Botanic Gardens, London, Parliament House, Canberra, and The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh.

Since 2020, she has had success in oil painting being a finalist in the Calleen Art Award (Cowra Regional Gallery) three times, the Muswellbrook Art Prize twice, and in 2022 won the Gallipoli Art Prize (acquisitive). Deirdre was a finalist in the Portia Geach Memorial Prize for portraiture in 2024 and 2025.

Deirdre was awarded the Hill End Artist in Residence 2021 and, in 2024, a residency at the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Centre.

Deirdre has been invited on four artist trips to Gallipoli (twice), the Western Front, and

Greece following the footsteps of Australian armed forces in World Wars I and II. Memberships include the Australian Watercolour Institute, and the Florilegium Society at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney