#English portrait painter john series#

#English portrait painter john series#

That same year, after lengthy reflection, she converted to the Catholic religion she then began a series of portraits of Mother Marie Poussepin (1653-1744), and devoted all her energy to duplicating and repeating one and the same motif. Two of her works were purchased by the Society of Contemporary Art in London, and, in 1913, the canvas titled Girl Reading at the Window, which she had sold to Quinn, was shown at the Armory Show in New York. In 1911 she moved to Meudon, keeping her Paris room as a studio. Her very open way of looking at modernity harbingered her liking of the Futurist exhibition in 1912.

In 1910, she embarked on a correspondence with the American art collector, John Quinn, who asked her advice to enlarge his collection. In 1908, the Portrait of Chloe Boughton-Leigh, presented at the NEAC, brought her to the attention of the critics. She lodged temporarily with Mary Constance Lloyd (1859-1898), a painter and designer with whom she would remain in touch throughout her life. To earn her living, she posed as a model, in particular for Rodin, and met many Montparnasse artists: Rainer Maria Rilke, Brancusi, Matisse, Picasso, Ida Gerhadi (1862-1927), and Hilda Flodin (1877-1958). In her pictures with their subtle shades of colour, she painted usually empty interiors, such as A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris (1907-1909), or at times rooms occupied by a woman alone, such as the Portrait of Chloe Boughton-Leigh (1907). The artist thus broke with the classical depiction of the fragile young girl, and showed us active young women of a new century. Two paintings from that period record her intentions: in L’Étudiante (1903), Dorelia, holding a book, is standing beside a table on which is laid Custine’s book, La Russie en 1839 Dorelia by Lamplight à Toulouse (1903-1904) shows the model engrossed in reading Custine’s book. In 1903, together with her brother, she exhibited at the Carfax Gallery, then in the company of her friend Dorelia Mc Neill (1881-1969), she walked from Paris to Toulouse, living off the sale of her drawings. In 1900, she came to notice through the qualities of Portrait of the Artist, a painting presented at the New English Art Club (NEAC). In the winter of 1898, with Ida Nettelship (1877-1907) and Gwen Salmond, she studied at the Carmen Academy in Paris, where Whistler was teaching. Between 18, she attended courses at the Slade School of Fine Arts in London, growing up amid a small group of students, which included the future painters Edna Clarke Hall (1879-1979) and her great friend Ursula Tyrwhitt (1878-1966).

Born to a mother who was an amateur painter and a father who was a legal advisor, she was the second of four children. Through her independence, her decision to live alone in Paris, her solid training, and the importance of her female friendships, Gwen John seemed to be the model of a new type of woman at the end of the 19 th century.