She grew up in Sydney and is described as "giving impetus to modernism" in Australia: when returning from France in 1913, she brought back a series of reproductions of then-current works which were influential to her fellow art students.
Sydney-based modernists inspired by those works and Simpson's descriptions of techniques include Grace Cossington Smith, Roy de Maistre and Roland Wakelin.
[1] Next year she enrolled in the Westminster School of Art and was taught by Walter Sickert,[1] then she travelled to France to see the work of Cézanne, van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso.
[5][6] The works contributed to "the debate and practice of new techniques and new subjects" by Simpson, Smith and Manning.
[4] Other Sydney artists influenced by Simpson include Roy de Maistre and Roland Wakelin.