Artists EVELYN DE MORGAN

Tracey Hebron introduces us to artist Evelyn de Morgan (1855–1919), a niece of the Spencer Stanhope family who owned Cannon Hall.

velyn De Morgan was one of the most Love’s Passing, Oil on Canvas, 1883-1884. This painting is an allegory for successful and prolific professional female the passing of time and the life cycle. The lovers in the foreground sit artists of her time. As a niece of the Spencer listening to the piping angel, the male figures seems entranced, but the Stanhope family she spent a great deal woman is distracted. The book open before them shows a passage from Eof time in her early years at Cannon Hall sketching the Latin poet Tibullus’s Elegy. Evelyn painted Love’s Passing shortly her surroundings. As a child she visited Cawthorne after meeting the older and prior to her marriage. She regularly in order to spend time with her relatives and didn’t sell the and it remained within the family until her younger sister’s death in 1965. it liberating to be allowed to roam the beautiful countryside, feel the fresh air and discover the nature professional artist. She also visited him frequently surrounding her. during the time he spent in Florence in Italy. Born Mary Everlyn Pickering in 1855, she These visits were to affect her profoundly came from a wealthy background as her and the influence of Pre-Renaissance mother (Roddam Spencer-Stanhope’s art features heavily in both their work. sister) was descended from a long Evelyn’s works, such as The Garden line of landowners in Yorkshire of Opportunity tended to favour Old and to the Coke of Norfolk, Earl Testament or mythological themes, of Leicester. She displayed a flair executed in a Pre-Raphaelite for art from an early age. On or neo-classical styles, in oils the morning of her seventeenth on canvas. In choosing these birthday she wrote: ‘17 today, that techniques and subject matters, is to say seventeen years wasted Evelyn was positioning herself in eating, dawdling and flittering as a professional artist, during a (frittering) time away…Art is period when few women succeeded eternal, but life is short… I have not in this field. Evelyn married the a moment to lose’. ceramic artist William de Morgan In the same year Evelyn drew a in 1887 and their union was a study of the male nude from a wooden meeting of minds both artistically and model, shocking her drawing teacher, politically. Both were concerned with who had been employed to instruct her in the inequalities that they saw in society copying fruit and flowers. In 1873, Evelyn around them. They campaigned for prison enrolled at the Slade School of Art (which had Evelyn De Morgan. reform and women’s suffrage. In later life opened two years earlier) where she was able Evelyn used her paintings to express her to develop her abilities with different artistic forms social and political views. n such as drawing, painting and sculpting. She became one of the first women to attend life drawing classes. Her skills in drawing were well respected and she won A new long-term permanent display of works by both Everlyn and several prizes including a coveted silver medal. Her William De Morgan is now homed at Cannon Hall Museum, on uncle, Roddam felt her drawing skills were superior loan from the . The De Morgan Foundation to his own and commented; ‘You can draw infinitely Collection was formed by Evelyn’s sister, Wilhelmina Stirling. better than I do, I can only envy you!’ Her lifetime passion was to preserve and promote the works and Evelyn was particularly close to her uncle reputation of her sister and brother in law. She displayed her collection at her home, Old Battersea House, in London and often Roddam Spencer Stanhope, of Cannon Hall, who gave tours of it to the public. After Mrs Stirling’s death in 1965, the was a Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist painted and De Morgan Foundation charitable trust was formed in order to care encourage by him, she followed in his footsteps, for the Collection. www.demorgan.org.uk. first by attending art school and later working as a

AUTUMN 2016 MEMORIES OF BARNSLEY 29