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Self Portrait,
1902
Gwen John was born in South Wales in 1876.
Though elder than her brother Augustus, it was only after
Augustus's gently bullying that Gwen was finally allowed
to follow him to the Slade to study. Partly to escape comparisons
with her notorious, but extraordinarily talented brother,
she left London to study in Paris at Whistler's recently
opened Academie Carmen.
Apart from only a few brief visits, France was to be her
home until her death in 1939. The years she spent as Rodin's
model and mistress (1905-1911) left her with an extraordinary
hunger for self-discipline and this was to shape the rest
of her life. As her relationship with the aging sculptor
began to fade so the intensity of feeling she felt for Rodin
was transferred to the Catholic Church and from 1913 to
her death in 1939, she observed an increasingly strict regime.
Her work from the 1910's and 'twenties was characterised
by a very limited range of subjects, in particular the nuns
and orphans of the nearby Church in Meudon. By the 1920's
she completed fewer oil paintings, finding the spontaneity
of watercolour and gouache more suited to her art: ' I think
a picture ought to be done in 1 sitting or at most 2. For
that one must paint a lot of canvases probably and waste
them'.
During the later 1920's and 1930's she developed a much
looser, more painterly style. Much of this development was
due to the choice of paper:, "I had a little Japanese
paper—I cut it all up in their sizes thinking I could
get as much as I wanted but yesterday when I went to Paris
for it I found it was all sold. It is a great misfortune.
It is so exquisite for my drawings. the coulour doesn't
run into each other. The paper absorbes the colour and each
touch of the brush has to be the final, no retouching can
be done."
She died, returning to England in 1939. By
this time her self-imposed regime was so severe
that, according one niece, it seemed she had
a death wish. Everything in her life was subservient
to her art—yet what was so unusual was
how little attempt she ever made to exhibit
her work in her later life. At times it can
seem that her painting was merely a private
act of devotion.'I cannot imagine why my vision
will have some value in the world—and
yet I know it will. I think I will count because
I am patient and recueillé'.
Gwen John by Alicia Foster, Gwen John – Paperback:
80 pages Publisher: Princeton University Press (August 2, 1999)
Although largely ignored in her lifetime, John's work is now
acclaimed by artists and art historians. This beautifully illustrated
book offers an excellent study of John's life and artistic development.
From London in the 1890s to Paris in the early twentieth century,
Gwen John's career spanned some of the most exciting periods
and places in cultural history. Demolishing the myth of Gwen
John (1876-1939) as a recluse, this new survey explores the
art world at the center of these cities and reveals the alliances
and differences the artist had with her contemporaries. John's
representation of the female nude, her paintings of interiors,
and the effects of her Catholic faith on her work are all considered.
The author also discusses the key relationship between John's
position as a woman artist and her fascination with the portrayal
of the female sitter.
Gwen John has long been regarded as one of the foremost female
painters of the twentieth century. She was just one of a group
of outstandingly talented women at the Slade School of Art,
a group which also included Edna Clarke Hall, Ida Nettleship
and Gwen Smith. This biography tells the story of these four
women's lives, from their shared student days at the Slade through
the subsequent development of their careers. It has often been
assumed that marriage and immersion in domestic responsibilities
terminated the promising careers of these women. But Thomas
shows that, despite these complications, they continued in serious
artistic endeavor throughout their lives, producing work of
a highly original and individual character. In striving to reconcile
the demands of family and domestic ties with their desire to
continue painting, the Slade women struggled with a dilemma
which continues to face many women in the late twentieth century.
Well illustrated and engagingly written, Portraits of Women
reconstructs a neglected chapter in the development of twentieth-century
art.
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Gwen John
Portraits of Women: Gwen John and Her Forgotten Contemporaries
