Portraits of Women: Gwen John and Her Forgotten Contemporaries

Thomas, Alison

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 074560661X ISBN 13: 9780745606613

Publisher: Polity Press, 1994

This is the first major group study of the lives and work of Edna Clarke Hall, Gwen John, Ida Nettleship and Gwen Smith whose work constitutes a previously neglected area of twentieth century British Art.

From the Back Cover:

Gwen John has long been regarded as one of the foremost femalepainters of the twentieth century. She was just one of a group ofoutstandingly talented women at the Slade School of Art, a groupwhich also included Edna Clarke Hall, Ida Nettleship and GwenSmith.

This biography tells the story of these four women′s lives, fromtheir shared student days at the Slade through the subsequentdevelopment of their careers. It has often been assumed thatmarriage and immersion in domestic responsibilities terminated thepromising careers of these women. But Thomas shows that, despitethese complications, they continued in serious artistic endeavorthroughout their lives, producing work of a highly original andindividual character. In striving to reconcile the demands offamily and domestic ties with their desire to continue painting,the Slade women struggled with a dilemma which continues to facemany women in the late twentieth century.

Well illustrated and engagingly written, Portraits ofWomen reconstructs a neglected chapter in the development oftwentieth–century art.

Synopsis:

Gwen John was just one of a group of 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 endeavour throughout their lives, producing work of a highly original and individual character.