Gwen John: 164 Colour Plates

By Maria Peitcheva

Gwendolen Mary John was a Welsh artist who worked in France for most of her career. She is noted for her still lifes and for her portraits, especially of anonymous female sitters. John was an artist's model for the sculptor Auguste Rodin. John exhibited in Paris for the first time in 1919 at the Salon d'Automne, and exhibited regularly until the mid-1920s, after which time she became increasingly reclusive and painted less. She had only one solo exhibition in her lifetime, in London in 1926. In that same year she purchased a bungalow in Meudon. In December 1926, distraught after the death of her old friend Rilke, she met and sought religious guidance from her neighbor, the neo-Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain. She also met Maritain's sister-in-law, Vera Oumancoff, with whom she formed her last romantic relationship. Gwen John's last dated work is a drawing of 20 March 1933, and no evidence suggests that she drew or painted during the remainder of her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maria Peitcheva
• Release date: Mar 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9788892584143

Book preview

Gwen John

164 Colour Plates

By Maria Peitcheva

First Edition

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Gwen John: 164 Colour Plates

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Copyright © 2016 Maria Peitcheva

Foreword

Gwendolen Mary John (1876 – 1939) was a Welsh artist who worked in France for most of her career. She is noted for her still lifes and for her portraits, especially of anonymous female sitters. John was an artist's model for (and later the lover of) the sculptor Auguste Rodin.

Gwen John was born in Haverfordwest, Wales, the second of four children of Edwin William John and his wife Augusta (née Smith). The children's interest in literature and art was encouraged. Following the mother’s premature death in 1884, the family moved to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Although she painted and drew from an early age, Gwen John's earliest surviving work dates from her nineteenth year. From 1895 to 1898, she studied at the Slade School of Art, where her younger brother, Augustus, had begun his studies in 1894. Even as a student, Augustus' brilliant draughtsmanship and personal glamour made him a celebrity. He greatly admired his sister's work, but