Imagine you received an annuity at a young age, never had to work, and had enough to fund your activities within reason. How would you spend your time?
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| Waterfall |
Soon after the death of her first husband, my wife’s great-grandmother married a wealthy bachelor who, although himself a translator rather than a writer, was very well-connected in London literary circles. His friends and house guests included Maxim Gorky, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Hardy, and Joseph Conrad. The couple holidayed in Rome, Athens and Egypt in the nineteen-twenties and -thirties.
Great-Grandma had a fifteen-year-old daughter still at home. The new husband looked after her generously, as if she were his own, funding her through Chelsea School of Art and presenting her as a debutante at the Court of King George V.
The daughter never married, continuing to live at home through the twenties and thirties, accompanying her mother and step-father abroad. She looked after her ageing mother after her step-father died, and was eventually left on her own. She is remembered as my wife’s eccentric great-aunt who lived a rather disorganized life in Oxford, where she was part of the art scene. I met her only once when she was in her eighties. She was tall and ungainly, very upper crust, and absolutely terrifying.
Her life was spent travelling and painting. Her travel list is long and impressive, especially considering the years in which they occurred: Bavaria and Sicily in 1928, Egypt in 1932, Malta in 1939, Mauritius and South Africa in 1950, San Francisco in 1962, India in 1969, Persia and Singapore in 1970, Burma and Malaya in 1973, China in 1978, Mexico in 1982 ... this is just a small sample. It made for a wealth of entertaining stories.
She was not well-known, but exhibited in London, mostly at the Brook Street Art Gallery, and a few times at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of British Artists.
Was she any good? You tell me. To me she was rather a messy artist with a distinctive, quirky style. Some of her pictures hang in our house, and we have some of her sketchbooks and colour slides. She had two main kinds of subject: exotic images of birds, animals and nature; and her travels, into which her quirky exoticism spilled. However, she may not have been all that original. Image searches reveal other paintings in a similar style.
Does it matter? Probably not. If we spend our time doing what we want, being creative as best we can, and are satisfied with the result, then what more could we ask? Isn’t that what we do on Blogger?
Pictures 2 and 4 are hard to photograph in their frames.
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| Enkhuizen |
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| Bali Dancers |
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| Flamingos |
That flamingos painting is quite lovely! Sounds like she had a charmed life, really.
ReplyDeleteI like the flamingos too. It is on the wall above the settee I am currently sitting on. If I lie down I look directly at it. Consequently, I have spent more time looking at that painting than any other. You see all kinds of things in it. The more you look, the more you see.
DeleteWas she from darn sarf? Have you had them valued?
ReplyDeleteCentral London, of course. They'll be worth no more than a few hundred, if that.
DeleteCreating is a personal affair that comes from the heart of the person. She had a lovely life and recorded it in her paintings. She is also part of your family and so ancestral 'feelings' may be there. I am not going to give judgment on her style it is not my place.
ReplyDeleteMy wife's family talk of her with a mixture of admiration and amusement. They did not have much contact until she was in her seventies, but then saw her once or twice each year. As regards paintings, her arty friends thought she "had something".
DeleteI'd say the animal paintings are more successful than the people, but who am I to judge? She enjoyed her art and that's what matters.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. She drew all her people like that, like they were animals.
DeleteDifferent people, different lives. Always fascinating.
ReplyDeleteYes. Enviable never to need to work. I wonder how I would have coped.
DeleteLeonora Carrington is my immediate reaction.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting comparison. I've just been looking. Not as wild as LC, probably not as driven, and nearly 20 years older.
DeleteI find myself more fascinated by someone who had the wherewithal to live a life of her own...and did just that! How rare it is. I am not a good judge of the merits of various artistic styles. But I think they are nicely done. (For what it is worth!)
ReplyDeleteDoing your own thing is something I'd learned earlier in life.
DeleteWe have two of the above in the house because we like them. I like Rachel's observation that they remind her of a later surrealist, but as others say, art is personal.
Imagine being able to live on 'independent means' all your adult life and live in comfort on it. Her style would have made a great children's books illustrator.
ReplyDeleteShe did some interesting wood engravings for a book of stories. I think she was influenced by Mabel Annesley who she knew.
DeleteInteresting. The third painting is "Bali Dancers" which sounds very similar to "Ballet Dancers". But I prefer "Belly Dancers" - as long as they don't ask me to have a go.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness I did not read that image over breakfast. I hadn't thought of the word associations.
DeleteShe is a very interesting relative and I really like her art.
ReplyDeleteWe like it too. I wish I had known her when she was still with it. She went into a care home soon after I met her.
DeleteI was drawn to the fact she looked after her mother, and her step-father, too. That is an under valued contribution, and excellent it probably contributed to her career.
ReplyDeleteA lot of her class and generation did not marry because many eligible men died as officers in the First World War. However, I think living at home also suited her.
DeleteI like the sky on "Enkhuizen" best. And that's as far as my "art critique" can go - I haven't a clue about it in the first place, and as has been said already, creating is a very personal process. It was one of the two pillars of this lady's life, not open to judgement, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteShe must have made a great addition to any party, being able to converse about many subjects, and probably rather headstrong.
I went straight to the picture to look at the sky. It shows what I mean about her being a messy artist, with her pencil lines still showing in bare areas. It was how she worked. I'm told she was entertaining, but the one time I met her she only kept asking repeatedly whether there was any bread, and she trod brown stuff over the carpet of my car - fortunately only chocolate. Quite sad, and my loss not to have met her earlier.
DeleteSuch an interesting story. As to the pictures - I like them - in a decorative sort of way - not sure I would hang them on the wall but they have been painted by a woman who sounds absolutely fascinating. They certainly echo her eccentricity.
ReplyDeleteThey (and several others) don't look out of place on our walls - either that or we have got used to them!
DeleteHow amazing to have such house guests to dinner. I would have loved to meet Thomas Hardy, as he is one of my favourite authors. What an amazing life they led.
ReplyDeleteDelving into this further, I think some of the guests might have pre-dated their marriage, so the great-grandma and great-aunt may not have met all, but it shows the kind of circles they moved in. Incredible.
DeleteI have made a slight edit to reflect this more accurately.
DeleteI think her enthusiasm for life shows in her paintings - colourful and uninhibited.
ReplyDeleteYes. From what I've heard she could be great fun.
DeleteThe paintings are decorative and stylised, very much of the period. The pleasure in them, as with many objects (see my life in one hundred objects!) is the connection, family pieces that open up the past. It is this that makes them precious, you look not only at the picture but at the stories that ripple out from the objects. Enjoy - and do share more stories with us!
ReplyDeleteThank you. It's interesting to have a perspective from someone "in the business". As you say, the family connection is important to us, and we like them a lot, while realising they may not be to everyone's liking. Stylised is a good word. She usually painted in the same way. Although a bit messy, I think she was quite skilled and knew what she was doing.
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