Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Evelyn de Morgan - artist


I enjoyed that little FB exercise with artists last week and decided to post artists I've never heard of on Wednesdays.  I'm sure that this will be a lifetime endeavor!

Meet Evelyn de Morgan.  There are many of her works on Google, but this one jumped out at me.  This is called Luna and it speaks to me about woman's inextricable link to the Moon - how our bodies change with the Moon and like the Moon.

You can see more of her work in this YouTube, which, unfortunately, is not embeddable.

Biography

Evelyn Pickering, who was born in London the daughter of upper-middle class parents and the niece of Rodhamn Spencer-Stanhope, was a painter within the circle of later Pre-Raphaelites who took their inspiration from the more romantic paintings of Rossetti and Burne-Jones. Her early ambition to paint was discouraged by her parents but later she was permitted to become a student at the Slade School and in due course to study in Italy, in Rome and in Florence. As a young woman she exhibited Ariadne in Naxos at the first Exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877.
Her mature style, which is distinguished by a precision of detail and a fondness for mythological subjects, was derived in part from her first artistic mentor, Roddam Spencer- Stanhope, with whom she frequently painted and visited with following his permanent departure for Tuscany in 1880. She was also profoundly influenced by Edward Burne-Jones who was a close friend. Her painting was admired by a circle of fellow-artists. William Blake Richmond said of her: 'Her industry was astonishing, and the amount which she achieved was surprising, especially considering the infinite care with which she studied every detail . . . " George Frederic Watts pronounced her 'the first woman-artist of the day -- if not of all time. Evelyn Pickering married the potter William De Morgan in 1887 and lived with him in London until his death in 1917. She died two years later. 
~Christopher Newall

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