Carey was born in Taonui in 1891, the daughter of Elizabeth Keeble and Richard Octavius Egerton Carey, a farmer. The family moved to Tuhikaramea, near Hamilton, around 1910.
Painting career
In 1921, the war artistHorace Moore-Jones saw Carey's work and encouraged her to study in Sydney under John Samuel Watkins, and Carey made several trips for tuition during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1924, Carey was elected a member of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales, and her work featured regularly in their exhibitions. In 1926, Bishop Cecil Cherrington commissioned Carey to paint a triptych in oils for the altar of his private chapel at St. Peter's Cathedral, Hamilton. Carey's works were exhibited at the Canterbury Society of Arts' annual exhibitions in 1928 and 1932, and in 1937, Carey's painting titled Study, was included in the Royal British Colonial Exhibition, London. In 1938, Carey was persuaded by her friend, fellow artist Frances Ellis, to travel to Sydney and study for six months under the tutelage of Italian painter Antonio Dattilo Rubbo. Carey was involved in a motor accident in 1963, and during her convalescence she was inspired to start a new art project - to find and paint every living Māori women who had a moko. Carey spent the next decade travelling around the North Island finding subjects and painting their portraits, and many of the original paintings were deposited in local galleries and museums. The work Amohia Tuhua, one of the first from the series, was joint winner of the 1968 Kelliher award for portraiture. Carey completed over 100 portraits, including a portrait of Māori QueenDame Te Atairangikaahu.
Carey and Adele Younghusband convened a public meeting in Hamilton in August 1934 which led to the establishment of the Waikato Society of Arts, born out of a desire to develop and encourage artists in the region, and to put on regular exhibitions. Carey was involved with the society for almost 50 years, serving as president from 1945 to 1948 and 1952 to 1954, and became a life member in 1964.
A gallery at Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato is named after Cary - the Ida Carey Gallery. Playwright Campbell Smith wrote a play based on the life of Carey, titled Ada and I, which was performed in Hamilton in 2014. Ida Carey: A Contemporary Viewing, was a retrospective 2018 exhibition at Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, featuring companion works by other New Zealand woman artists.
