Agnes Clara Tatham (1893–1972) was born into an affluent and well-educated family at Northcourt House in Abingdon, Berkshire near Oxford, the fourth of five children of Meaburn Talbot Tatham and Susan Clara Miers. Her father was a schoolmaster at Rugby and Westminster, then following his move to Abingdon, a successful private tutor. He was a Justice of the Peace for Berkshire and was known in the district for his Liberal politics and concern for the needy.
Tatham studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art in Kensington, where she became a lifelong friend of the teacher Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872–1945), the Royal Institute of Oil Painters' earliest female member. Tatham thereafter studied at the Royal Academy Schools from 1915 to 1921, where she received several medals for painting.
Tatham's career began in the early 1920s; she exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1918 to 1961, the Paris Salon and the Royal Society of British Artists. With two contemporaries from the Byam Shaw School of Art, Alice Burton (1892–1973) and Elsie Gledstanes (1891–1982), she set up the 'Unique School for Children’s Art' in London.
Agnes Clara Tatham's work was marked by a blend of traditional and modern influences. She excelled at portraiture, depicting female sitters in particular, but also painted allegorical subjects in a mystical, Symbolist style.
Tatham lived in Holland Park Road, Kensington until 1939. During the war years she spent time back at Northcourt House. Around 1950 she moved to 77 Bedford Gardens, Kensington, then in 1970 she returned to Northcourt for the remainder of her life. She never married and had no children.
