President of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters 1933, (Argus 6 Nov 1933).

A joyous feeling dominates the work of Dora Serle (Mrs. Percival Serle), who is exhibiting oil paintings at Margaret Maclean's gallery, Kodak House, 252 Collins street. Mr. R. H. Croll opened the how yesterday afternoon. Mrs. Serle has attempted very difficult problems in the painting of flowers against light and bowls of flowers on window-sills. She is to be admired for tackling this subject matter, and she is rewarded by a number of highly successful efforts. These studies are well and sensitively handled, making up somewhat for the careless drawing of objects. Ellipses are always difficult to draw, and unfortunately for all of us must be correct-unless one be a modernist. Some sketches in a garden with a shadow patterning a wall are extremely good. The effect of sunlight is real, and the subjects in two cases are happily chosen. Colour formula dinned into us in bygone years is emphasised rather much by Mrs. Serle. Purple shadows are not as violent as she would suggest. The study of reflected light and the greater use of yellow in shadows would produce simpler and better results. One of the principal things about this show is its obvious sincerity. The pictures are definite attempts to give illusions of light. As a contrast to the easier and generally adopted method of painting flowers against an almost black background, this show is a relief. Odd craft on Hobart's waterfront supply subjects for other sketches. In these Mrs. Serle shows an ability to set down facts quickly and easily. (Argus 1 Apr 1936)

On 29 March 1910 he had married the artist Dora Beatrice Hake (1875-1968).

His wife Dora was born in South Melbourne on 2 September 1875. She studied at the National Gallery schools and with Phillips Fox, Jane Sutherland, Walter Withers, and Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn, Cornwall, England. In Paris in 1902 she revelled in the Impressionists, 'decided that was how I wanted to paint', and went on to grapple throughout her life with the interplay of colour and light. For several years before marriage she conducted an art school at Geelong. She was, for some seventy years, a member of the Victorian Artists' Society and from 1939 of the Independent Group of Artists; she was president of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters in 1933-34, represented them on the National Council of Women (Victoria), and was a member of the Lyceum Club. Her work is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and provincial galleries. She died at Hawthorn on 10 September 1968. Her sister Elsie Barlow (1876-1948) was also an artist, primarily a water-colourist, and was a founder of the Castlemaine Art Gallery. (ADB)