Gwen John: A Life

Sue Roe

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Review

At the height of his flamboyant fame in 1942, Augustus John predicted in praise of his sister’s work, that “in fifty years time I shall be remembered as Gwen John’s brother” and we have to congratulate him not only not only on the generosity of this sentiment but also on the accuracy of his prediction.  While his reputation has indeed been in general decline since his death, hers has slowly gained in stature as more and more people respond to the calm beauty of her interiors and portraits.  Indeed, one of her paintings is surely the single best picture in the “Victorian Nude” show at Tate Britain.

She entered the Slade school more or less at the same time as her brother in 1894 and although she was always in his shadow, she was recognised as one of the most promising talents of her generation.  In spite of the difficulties surrounding the concept of women as artists, she opted for Paris - then the centre of the art world - where she worked as a life model to finance her studies.  It was thus that she met and had a long affair with Rodin, a figure of great standing in this milieu.  As with Camille Claudel, the sculptor, he used her as model, mistress and maid, while she adored him and hectored him.  This sad, epiphytic relationship continued until his death in 1917.  What he had done, however, was to reveal the passion in her nature and encourage her as an artist.

Thereafter she lived as an eccentric English recluse in the suburbs of Paris, diligently returning again and again to the scenes around her: a chair in the corner of her bedroom, local girls or the nuns from a nearby convent.  She worked in a thorough scientific way to understand the theories of colour, and the author skilfully conveys the hard work which went into the production of the relatively small number of canvases which passed the test of her own demanding standards.

Susan Roe is to be congratulated on this quiet, serious, but highly appropriate biography of one of the most interesting artists of the 20th Century. - review by Stewart Grimshaw