Gwen John and Augustus John Teachers' Pack

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Teacher and student notes with key work cards Gwen John and Augustus John Tate Britain, 29 September 2004 - 9 January 2005

Gwen John (1876-1939) The Student 1903-4

Introduction These introductory notes are intended both for teachers and students from KS4 onwards. They contain some background information about the artists and pinpoint central themes and ideas in the Gwen and Augustus John exhibition. The key work cards that follow (which you could print out and laminate) focus on individual paintings and include suggested discussion points, activities and links to other works, both in the Tate collection and elsewhere. They can be used not only to support an exhibition visit, but also as a classroom resource with a longer shelf-life.

Please note: further sets of key work cards are available for sale in Tate shops as part of the Tate Britain and Tate Modern Teachers' Kits, or in themed packs (£9.99) which are currently available on Portraits and Identity and Landscape and Environment. The set of key work cards focusing on portraits provides the historical background to the theme. It would therefore be a useful extension to your study of these two 20th century portraitists.

Make sure that you look at some of the historic portraits in the Collection displays while you are at Tate Britain, as well as visiting the exhibition. This will help you measure the Johns' achievements in dispensing with rank and status as prerequisites for portraiture.

Key themes of the exhibition David Fraser Jenkins, curator of this exhibition, opens his catalogue essay by highlighting two aspects of the artists, Gwen and Augustus John. Firstly he highlights the importance of the simple fact that they were brother and sister and, according to Augustus, 'not opposites but much the same really, but we took a different attitude'. Next he explains that they felt themselves to be outsiders because they were Welsh, not English, and there were not many Welsh artists at that time. Their defensive position was, according to Fraser Jenkins, that they 'abhorred the whole notion of belonging to anything' and as a result they 'were simply not part of the weave of British art'.

These defining characteristics should provide a way into the exhibition for students, many of whom have siblings and some of whom, for whatever reason, feel themselves to be outsiders.

For discussion before and during your visit

- Why do artists make portraits, using paint, sculpture and photography? Is it simply to record appearance, or can you think of other reasons? Look at press photos in newspapers as well as pictures in art books to help you decide. Think about what you want to achieve when you compose a portrait.

- Consider what unites and separates you from your brothers and sisters whom you may sometimes feel are your best friends, at other times your worst enemies. In the exhibition look out for similarities and differences between the paintings of this brother and sister.

- Do you ever feel yourself to be an outsider? What are the strengths and disadvantages of this position? Look at the work of Gwen and Augustus's contemporaries in rooms 17, 19, 20 and 23 of the Tate Britain collection displays. Can you see what separates the Johns' work from that of artists like Harold Gilman, William Rothenstein or Vanessa Bell? Are there similarities? Gwen John and Augustus John

A brief outline of the artists' lives Gwen was the older child, born in Haverford West in 1876 while Augustus was born in Tenby in 1878. Their mother died when Gwen was eight and Augustus six, leaving them in the care of an uncommunicative Welsh solicitor father who left them largely to their own devices. Both artists studied at the Slade School of Art in London, then unusual in offering an equal education to both women and men. Augustus stood out immediately from other students because of his skill in drawing which was the basis of art school curriculum at that time, and a great future was predicted for him. In 1901 he married Ida Nettleship, a fellow student and friend of Gwen's.

In 1903 Augustus and Gwen shared an exhibition at the Carfax Gallery in London. Augustus wrote to his friend and fellow painter William Rothenstein saying: 'Gwen has the honours or should have ...The little pictures to me are almost painfully charged with feeling'. John Rothenstein, son of William and later director of the Tate Gallery, described Augustus peering 'fixedly, almost obsessively, at pictures by Gwen as though he could discern in them his own temperament in reverse'. One of Augustus's endearing qualities was that he could appreciate his sister's work to the extent of valuing it over and above his own.

Augustus's household was complicated by the inclusion of his mistress as well as his wife. This was Dorothy McNeill, discovered by Gwen and given the name Dorelia by the Johns. Also a close friend of Ida, Dorelia like her bore Augustus's children. In 1907 Ida died from complications after the birth of her fifth son and Dorelia filled her place as mother to all their children.

From 1907 until 1910 Augustus was praised as the outstanding young artist in London. That valuation declined from about 1916, just as Gwen was coming into her own. Meanwhile from 1904 Gwen had settled in Paris where she earned money by posing for artists. While modelling for sculptor Auguste Rodin she fell in love with him, becoming his mistress. He was 64 and famous; she was 28 and virtually unknown. According to Augustus, whereas she had been 'shy as a sheep' before she met Rodin, she became 'amorous and proud' afterwards.

From 1911 until he died of cancer in 1924, an American patron, John Quinn, provided Gwen with a regular income. (Quinn also collected works by Seurat, Cézanne, Picasso and Matisse). From January 1911 Gwen rented three rooms in the top storey of a house in rue Terre Neuve in Meudon, about twenty kilometres outside Paris. It was there that she turned to religion, attending church from 1913. She died in Dieppe (nobody knows why she had gone there) in 1939 at the age of 63, shortly after the outbreak of the second world war. Her nephew Edwin, who had visited her in Meudon, made sure that her paintings, neglected by her for some years, were rescued from the outhouse where she had kept them.

Augustus lived on to be nearly 84 at the time he died in 1961. He had long since outlived his fame, was drinking too much and was subject to moods of deep depression. Poor Augustus.

Using key work cards One aim of this exhibition is to allow us to reassess the work of the two artists. The key work cards present you with a number of contrasts and comparisons to help you identify some characteristics of each artist's work. The first comparison is between the brother and sister's different ways of seeing Dorelia as a Woman Smiling and as The Student. Next you could compare outdoors and indoors with Augustus's Lyric Fantasy set in a landscape and Gwen's interior The Artist's Room in Paris. The third comparison is between Gwen's two outstandingly frank portraits of model Fenella Lovell, clothed and naked. And finally the contrast between Augustus's Joseph Hone and Gwen's The Nun invites you to consider two very different ways of making a portrait. There are many other linked paintings in the exhibition for you to compare. See how many pairings you can find.

For discussion Do you prefer one of the artists to the other? Is is there one whose work you prefer, for personal reasons perhaps? Gwen John and Augustus John

Augustus John (1878-1961) Woman Smiling 1908-9 Oil on canvas, 1960 x 982 mm Tate. Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917 © copyright courtesy of the artist's estate / www.bridgeman.co.uk Gwen John and Augustus John

'The vitality of this gypsy Gioconda is fierce, disquieting, emphatic.' Roger Fry's reaction to Woman Smiling, published in The Burlington Magazine, May 1909.

Augustus John (1878-1961) Woman Smiling 1908-9 Oil on canvas, 1960 x 982 mm Tate. Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917 © copyright courtesy of the artist's estate / www.bridgeman.co.uk

Background For discussion Can you imagine being taken aback, or perhaps .There are at least twenty works in this even shocked, by this portrait if you had seen it in exhibition, drawings as well as paintings, by the exhibition of Fair Women in 1909? Probably not. Augustus of Dorelia. She posed frequently for From today's standpoint it is even difficult to him not just because he loved her but because conceive of an exhibition with such a sexist name she was very good at adapting herself to the ever taking place. In that show contemporary pose the artist wanted. How do you interpret artworks like Woman Smiling were juxtaposed with the different poses Augustus asked her to old master paintings so that viewers could contrast adopt? What roles does she play other than the beauties of one age with those of another. By that of gypsy? describing her as a "gypsy Gioconda", art critic .To put yourself in the position of viewers of this Roger Fry was making a link between the sitter's painting when it was first exhibited, have a smile and the most famous of all portraits, Leonardo look at some traditional portraits in the da Vinci's Mona Lisa, otherwise known as La collection displays, starting with the Gioconda. supercilious Queen Elizabeth 1 c 1575 in room 2, attributed to Nicholas Hilliard. (You will have Traditionally, commissioned portraits tended to be of to do this before or after entering the people of rank or fortune. Part of the reason why the exhibition). painting surprised people so much was that Dorelia, .Compare this portrait of Dorelia with Gwen's who posed for this portrait, had neither. She had The Student. What different aspects of her designed her own "gypsy" dress, encouraged in this personality have Gwen and Augustus by Augustus who was fascinated by gypsies, emphasised in their portrayals? envying them their independent way of life. He had learnt the English version of Romani to be able to Activities talk to them in their own language which he also .Augustus turned Dorelia into a gypsy to show used to write love letters to Dorelia, obligingly how special he thought she was. Imagine a supplying her with word lists so that she would be new role for your girl/boyfriend, or even able to understand what he had written! yourself, and sketch them/yourself in that guise. Augustus painted this portrait of Dorelia some years after Gwen had depicted her in The Student. Notice Links how much plumper she looks in Augustus's version. Augustus was not the only artist to be He had told Dorelia 'Your fat excites me interested in gypsies. Compare his Caravan: a enormously', whereas Gwen painted her at the end Gypsy Encampment 1905 with Alfred of an a hundred and fifty mile walk during which Munnings's Epsom Downs - City and there had been no surplus of food to eat. Suburban Day 1919 (visit www.tate.org.uk/collection to see the Fry described the effect of 'intense life' in Woman Munnings). Although the two pictures are Smiling and one of Augustus's great strikingly similar in their free brushwork, accomplishments is his ability to make the sitter Munnings is painting an exotic scene from come alive for us. He achieves a sense of vitality in the outside whereas Augustus knew what part through boldly applied brushstrokes. You will gypsy life was like through living in a caravan have to go close - but not too close - to the painting with Dorelia. to observe this. Gwen John and Augustus John

'She was extremely strange and hard ...always attracted to the wrong people for their beauty alone. But her work was more important than anyone.' Dorelia speaking about Gwen John after her death to Augustus's biographer, Michael Holroyd.

Background For discussion Augustus was not the only person to be attracted to .Augustus's presentation of Dorelia in Woman Dorelia. Gwen was too. For this reason, when the Smiling is a painting of a relationship between two women set off together in 1903 to walk through France to Rome their venture took on the flavour of a man and a woman. What about The Student: an elopement. In fact they got no further than does it reveal anything about Gwen's feelings Toulouse but this in itself was no mean feat as by for Dorelia? then they had walked a hundred and fifty miles from .Compare Dorelia's dress in this painting to the Bordeaux. They slept out of doors in barns, stealing one worn by Miss Chloe Boughton-Leigh bread and fruit on the way and Gwen would draw c.1907 (Tate) in the exhibition. Do you think portraits in cafés in exchange for a meal. both models are wearing the same dress Dorelia must have been glad when the walk ended which Gwen might have owned as a studio and all she was required to do was to model for her prop and altered for each of them to wear? portrait because her 'hard'friend had insisted she (This is not a question for which there is a carry her equipment on the walk so that Gwen's known answer). One of Gwen's sitters said artist hands would not be damaged! They rented a that the artist tried to make her resemble cheap room in Toulouse for the winter of 1903-4 and there Gwen painted four pictures of her companion. herself as much as possible before painting her by choosing her pose and hairstyle. Although this portrait might seem unassuming, like Making her model wear her own dress would Woman Smiling it breaks with a long tradition of have enhanced the similarities. British portraiture in that it tells us nothing about the sitter's rank or status in society. Dorelia's dress is Activities timeless, the background gives us no clue as to .Gwen uses the books in this painting to where she is. It is evening and she stands out from envelope her sitter in a particular mood. the dark background, alone and immersed in Draw or paint yourself using a different prop thought. to suggest your particular interests or to create a specific mood. The other important element in her portrayal is the book held under her left arm and those which lie on Links the table. Darkness is a time for reading and Visit www.vangoghmuseum.nl and go to contemplation. La Russie (the title of the well- Permanent Collections to find Vincent van thumbed book shown uppermost on the table) evokes ideas of travel to far off lands. Many artists Gogh's Still Life with Books 1887 and Study for including Vincent Van Gogh, and right up to the 'Romans Parisiens' 1888. These are the same present day, believe that reading books feeds and kind of soft backed books as in Gwen John's stimulates their art. But art has its own language of painting. The books carry their own French line, form and colour which Gwen John was to make personality; like people they contribute to the her own. In 1898 Gwen had attended American atmosphere of the painting. Do you prefer the artist J McNeill Whistler's art school in Paris. When Whistler met Augustus in the Louvre, Augustus books on their own (Van Gogh) or with a person asked him whether he agreed that Gwen was skilled (Gwen John)? Work out the reason for your in capturing character. 'Character?' retorted preference. Whistler, who had taught Gwen the art of tonal relationships, 'What's that? Your sister has a fine sense of tone'. In this painting the mellow shades of Dorelia's face together with the brighter white of the pages of La Russie attract our attention first. But then we may notice all the subtle gradations of cool greys and warm browns that exist both in the room and on the table. Gwen John and Augustus John

Augustus John (1878-1961) Lyric Fantasy c1913/14 Oil and pencil on canvas 23380 x 4720 mm. Tate. Bequeathed by Mrs Reine Pitman 1972 © copyright courtesy of the artist's estate / www.bridgeman.co.uk Gwen John and Augustus John 'I am apt to search much further back than human memory can tell of, to Pre-history and the Dawn, for clues to a clearer sense of personal identity.' Augustus John in his memoir, Finishing Touches

Augustus John (1878-1961) Lyric Fantasy c1913/14 Oil and pencil on canvas 23380 x 4720 mm. Tate. Bequeathed by Mrs Reine Pitman 1972 © copyright courtesy of the artist's estate / www.bridgeman.co.uk

Background For discussion Augustus is always presented as a flamboyant .What difference in atmosphere does the open opposite to Gwen; one of our tasks in viewing the air setting of Lyric Fantasy create in exhibition is to decide whether they really were so comparison with Gwen's portrait of her room different. Certainly he was much more showy, a man in Paris? Are there any similarities in mood with long hair who dressed as a gypsy, had affairs between the two paintings? with many women and who, in 1905, arranged for Dorelia to have their first child in a caravan on Activity Dartmoor. Perhaps because he had experienced life .When you next paint figures, experiment by in the open air, landscape features strongly in his placing them first in an outdoor and then in an figure compositions. It is scarcely present in Gwen's indoor setting. What difference does the work at all. setting create in the atmosphere of your group? In 1911 he had moved his family to a country house (Alderney Manor) in Dorset and the scenery in Lyric Links Fantasy is inspired by Wareham Heath with its small This painting features both Augustus's dead lakes. This landscape provides a timeless setting for wife and his living mistress with some of their a gathering of figures which include Augustus's children. He paints his family as a dynasty just dead wife Ida (far right). Deeply upset by her death as David des Granges did in the mid in 1907, Augustus has restored her to life in this seventeenth century in The Saltonstall Family, painting. Dorelia is shown playing a guitar near the which you can see in gallery room 2 outside the centre and the two women's children play amongst exhibition. Find this huge painting or see it some unidentified adults. Augustus believed that reproduced by visiting 'the artist is always an outsider ...Perhaps in a www.tate.org.uk/collection. It features Sir dream he has caught a glimpse of a Golden Age and Richard Saltonstall standing with his children is in search of it'. The question is, does he succeed and his seated second wife who is holding her here in capturing this Golden Age? Does the picture new baby. Sir Richard's first wife who has died is work as well as Gwen's much more down to earth the ghostly figure in the bed gesturing towards record of her room in Paris? The fact that Lyric her children. Notice that in Lyric Fantasy Ida also Fantasy is unfinished may suggest that Augustus looks towards two of her children, but as in the was dissatisfied with it. Perhaps the fact that Sir earlier work, they cannot see her. In your Hugh Lane, who had commissioned the picture, died opinion which is the more convincing inclusion on the Lusitania when it was torpedoed by the Germans in 1915, might have disheartened him. of a ghost with the living? Why? (The Saltonstall Family is also available as a key The format of the painting with its band of figures work card in the Portraits set which is on sale in stretched right across the surface might have been Tate shops.) suggested by Picasso's ground-breaking Les Demoiselles d'Avignon which Augustus had seen when he visited the artist in his Paris studio in August 1907. In the same year Augustus expressed sympathy for Picasso's bold simplifications by declaring: 'I am about to paint a picture (Lyric Fantasy) which will prove conclusively that the finest decoration can be produced without any reference to visual "nature"'. Gwen John and Augustus John

Gwen John (1876-1939) A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris (with Open Window) 1907-09 Oil on canvas on board 31.2 x 24.8 cm National Museums & Galleries of Wales Copyright Estate of Gwen John 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS Gwen John and Augustus John 'My room is so delicious after a whole day outside, it seems to me that

I am not myself except in my room.' Gwen John in a letter to Rodin

Background For discussion A painting of a room can be more than just a .Compare this painting with A Corner of the description of appearances. Very often the room is Artist's Room in Paris c.1907-9. What thought to say something about the people who live differences are there in the two pictures? How there. Sometimes male artists have painted rooms do the changes in the painting with a closed as women's space to try to understand the window affect the atmosphere? Which room environment in which they live. seems the more inviting to you? Look closely at the way Gwen laid on the paint Gwen John painted several views of the rooms she .in these two pictures and compare their lived in which are quite as expressive of her texture with that of Lyric Fantasy. Does the personality as her self-portraits. This one shows her way the pictures are painted match the overall attic room in an eighteenth century house in the Rue mood? du Cherche Midi in Paris, where she lived from spring 1907 to autumn 1909. The simplicity of the room with its few possessions (which you will find Activity repeated in other paintings) is presented as an .Does your own bedroom reflect your own ideal. It may make you envy the life she led there on personality? If not, how could you alter it to her own. She was no hermit; she had friends and make it seem more like you? contacts with the Paris art world and remained in contact with her brother and his family. Nonetheless Links her life was very different and much quieter than his. Compare the empty chair in Gwen John's painting with the one in Van Gogh's Chair 1888 Gwen does not exclude the outer world entirely; her in the National Gallery. (To see an image of this outdoor clothes are draped over her cheap wicker painting, visit www.nationalgallery.org.uk and chair. The bright daylight outside shines through the look for it under 'Permanent Collection'). If the open window into the subdued light of the room. chairs stand for the absent artists, how do you read the difference in their characters? Imagine The picture was painted at the time that Gwen's a conversation between the two chairs. Is one love affair with sculptor Auguste Rodin was declining more feminine, more gentle, more easily and the empty chair might suggest an absent offended than the other? presence. That could be the artist herself or it might stand as her hope that Rodin will come back to sit in In room 19 of Tate Britain look at Harold Gilman's it. Yet the overall atmosphere of the interior is of French Interior c1905-7. Gilman was born in the contentment rather than of sadness. same year as Gwen John and also painted portraits and interiors. How is the mood of this painting different from Gwen's? Does the inclusion of a person add to or diminish the work's atmospheric content? Gwen John and Augustus John

Gwen John (1876-1939) Nude Girl 1909-10 Oil on canvas, 445 x 279 mm Tate. Presented by the Contemporary Arts Society 1917 © Estate of Gwen John 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS Gwen John and Augustus John 'It is a great strain doing Fenella. It is a pretty little face but she is dreadful.' Gwen in a letter to her friend Ursula Tyrwhitt, Sept 1909

Background For discussion Gwen John's painting fits American art critic Robert .Look at the Girl with Bare Shoulders and the Rosenblum's notions of Britishness in two ways. Nude Girl. Does their gaze make you feel Firstly because hers is 'an art of whispered tonalities' uncomfortable? Why might that be? In your which follows on from Whistler's often nearly opinion, what is Fenella thinking about the monochrome paintings. Secondly because, like artist for whom she is posing? Stanley Spencer and Lucian Freud in their treatment of sexual themes, some of her paintings 'reveal the Activity volcano beneath the placid surface'. Nude Girl and .Once you have left the exhibition, find Parting Girl with Bare Shoulders of the same year are cases at Morning 1891 by William Rothenstein in in point. Augustus wrote to John Rothenstein that gallery room 17. In what ways does it Gwen's 'passions for both men and women were resemble the Girl with Bare Shoulders? Which outrageous and irrational'. These two paintings of of the two paintings do you find more model Fenella Lovell track Gwen's disillusionment disturbing and why? with the woman whose blue eyes had originally attracted her and whom she had paid £15 (a great Links deal of money at the time) to model for her. Visit www.google.com and go to 'Images'. Type in 'Maja Desnuda'. Compare the attitude of male Nude Girl is unusual both in the thinness of the artist Francisco de Goya, who died in 1828, to a naked girl and in its frank exposition of unhappy nude woman, with Gwen John's approach to feelings. We are used to seeing old master pictures, female nakedness. How can you describe the painted by men, of desirable nudes. Fenella is not differences? confidently nude but exposed as naked, so thin that she could be anorexic. Like Fenella who had been rejected as a model by Rodin because she was too thin, Gwen was eating very little because she was upset because Rodin was no longer her lover. He and his secretary, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, were distressed at her self-imposed diet of chestnuts in milk. To writer John Berger, the word naked means 'to be oneself, to be without disguise' and Fenella reveals her undisguised self. Instead of using her clothes to add to her attractions she wears a dress that looks as if it might fall off any moment.

Writer and painter Wyndham Lewis, whose portrait by Augustus is included in the exhibition, noted 'the anguished rigidity of the pose' of the Nude Girl. Look at how her long, long arm adds to this feeling of extreme awkwardness and discomfort in both paintings. Gwen John and Augustus John

Augustus John (1878-1961) Joseph Hone 1932 Oil on canvas, 508 x 405 mm Tate. Purchased 1946 © copyright courtesy of the artist's estate / www.bridgeman.co.uk Gwen John and Augustus John

'John was fifty-three in 1931, but he seemed old, his hair was grey, his eyes bloodshot.' Lady Mosley about Augustus John in 1931

Augustus John (1878-1961) Joseph Hone 1932 Oil on canvas, 508 x 405 mm Tate. Purchased 1946 © copyright courtesy of the artist's estate / www.bridgeman.co.uk

Background For discussion In his excellent biography of Augustus John, Michael .Augustus John had the ability to bring his Holroyd paints a picture of a man who by the time sitters to life with quite startling effect. Look he was 54 (his age when he painted this picture) for example at the portrait of his son Robin was riddled by self-doubt, subject to fits of terrible c.1912 and of his friend and fellow artist gloom, often isolated himself from communication Wyndham Lewis c.1905. Does Joseph Hone with others and who tried to find solace in over- come magically alive for you? (If not, why not?) generous quantities of alcohol. He had long outlived What kind of a man do you think he was? his early popularity and fame as an artist although .At the time he painted this picture Augustus he had been elected RA (Royal Academician), John was generally considered to be past his considered a high achievement, just four years prime (read the quotation at the top of this earlier, in 1928. One talent that he never lost, page). He himself was worried that he had lost however, was the ability to conjure up a living his talent. What is your verdict? likeness of his friends, not only in their appearance Augustus was often able to enter but in their character. Joe Hone was an old friend, a . imaginatively into the shoes of his sitter. distinguished Irish biographer, best remembered for a biography of his friend and contemporary, the Compare his outward going attitude in this The Nun poet WB Yeats. Holroyd describes him as as 'an portrait with Gwen's . Does Gwen Irishman of impressive silence', and there is bring out characteristics of the nun in the something about these slightly glazed, dreamy eyes same way? that lends credence to that description. Activity

Compare this portrait with others by Augustus In 1927 the John family had moved to Fryern Court . in the exhibition. In your opinion, which sitter on the edge of the New Forest. Hone came there to stay in the early summer of 1932 and sat for his does he bring most effectively to life? portrait. Augustus was not particularly pleased with Links the results and would have liked to do more At the height of his fame Augustus was seen as drawings but his friend was unable to return and the continuing in his portraits where JS Sargent had picture remained, at Dorelia's request, as he had left left off. On leaving the exhibition look at Sargent it. paintings on display in collection rooms 9, 15 and 17 and see whether you can see a connection between the two styles of portraiture. Gwen John and Augustus John

'Ma religion et mon art, c'est toute ma vie.' Gwen John ('My religion and my art are my entire life.')

Background For discussion Gwen became a Roman Catholic in 1913. She had .Look at all Gwen John's paintings of nuns and admired the costumes of the Sisters of Charity who of Mère Poussepin. Do the paintings share any ran an orphanage in the small town of Meudon one quality? where she lived. She met the Mother Superior and .What is special about the artist's range of promised to paint a number of pictures of the colours and her technique in these works? Do founder of their order, Mère Poussepin. She worked you think they accord well with the subject? from a printed prayer card, using as her models two nuns who adopted the posture of Mère Poussepin. Activity Gwen found the work difficult and did not complete .After you leave the exhibition find room 14 of the first painting for seven years. The Nun is the the collection displays. Find GF Watts's The earliest painting of a nun in this exhibition and she is Dweller in the Innermost c1885-6 in which a shown wearing the original seventeenth century winged female figure with a trumpet headdress worn by Mère Poussepin on the prayer personifies self-reflective thought and the card. human conscience. Which expresses such feelings best for you, this painting or Gwen About this time Gwen wrote: 'I don't live when I John's The Nun? spend time without thought'. Unlike her brother who, in his portraits of friends, brought out their Links individual characteristics, Gwen used non- Also in the collection displays, look at Harold professional models in order to create archetypal Gilman's Mrs Mounter at the Breakfast Table exh. images. That is to say that her interest lay in the 1917 in room 19 so that you can compare it with condition of being a nun rather than in the The Nun. The two women have very different personality of one specific nun. The viewer's hunch professions; Mrs Mounter was Gilman's that she picked up qualities in her sitters that landlady. But can you find any similarities in the corresponded to her own characteristics will be way the artists present the two women? strengthened by these works which clearly express her own satisfaction in quiet thoughtfulness and introspection. In them she expressed what she described to her friend Ursula Tyrwhitt as 'a more interior life'.

Working on a plaster ground, Gwen applied her paint in separate touches echoing the simple patterns of Japanese prints which she admired. The paintings of nuns were much admired at Gwen's one-man show at the Chenil Gallery in 1926.