Evelyn De Morgan Explained

Birth Name:Mary Evelyn Pickering
Birth Date:30 August 1855
Birth Place:London, England
Death Place:London, England
Resting Place:Brookwood Cemetery
Known For:painting
Education:Slade School of Art
Spouse:William De Morgan
Nationality:English
Style:Pre-Raphaelite, Symbolist
Movement:Pre-Raphaelites

Evelyn De Morgan (30 August 1855 – 2 May 1919) was an English painter associated early in her career with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, and working in a range of styles including Aestheticism and Symbolism.[1] Her paintings are figural, foregrounding the female body through the use of spiritual, mythological, and allegorical themes. They rely on a range of metaphors (such as light and darkness, transformation, and bondage) to express what several scholars have identified as spiritualist and feminist content.[2] [3] [4] [5] Her later works also dealt with the themes of war from a pacifist perspective, engaging with conflicts such as the Second Boer War and World War I.

Early life

She was born Mary Evelyn Pickering at 6 Grosvenor Street[3] in London, England, to Percival Pickering QC, the Recorder of Pontefract, and Anna Maria Wilhelmina Spencer Stanhope, the sister of the artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and a descendant of Coke of Norfolk who was an Earl of Leicester.

De Morgan was educated at home; according to her sister and biographer, Anna Wilhelmina Stirling, their mother insisted that "from the first Evelyn [was to] profi[t] from the same instruction as her brother."[6] She studied Greek, Latin, French, German, and Italian, as well as classical literature and mythology, and was also exposed at a young age to history books and scientific texts.[7] The introduction to this book describes the couple as practicing automatic writing together every night for many years of their marriage.[10] Since precious little primary material in Evelyn De Morgan’s own hand has survived,[11] this text provides important information about her faith and her approach to a range of issues—from her understanding of ultimate reality to her belief about the role of art in capturing spirit. From the moment that de Morgan encountered spiritualism, her perspective seemed to change, and her works started to reflect more ideas about darkness and death.[12]  De Morgan used a range of motifs to represent spiritual ideas. A few examples are Renaissance angels, heavenly auras, a distinctive contrast between light and dark, and the symbolic use of colours. De Morgan used complex allegories to depict her social commentary and spiritual beliefs. The iconography in these works reflect several spiritual themes such as the progress of the spirit, the materialism of life on earth, and the imprisonment of the soul in the earthly body.  

Evelyn De Morgan died on 2 May 1919 in London, two years after the death of her husband and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery near Woking, Surrey. Their tombstone bears an inscription from The Result of an Experiment: “Sorrow is only of the flesh / The life of the spirit is joy”.

Career

De Morgan started drawing lessons when she was 15, and from the outset was dedicated to her craft. On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, she wrote in her diary: "Art is eternal, but life is short…" — "I will make up for it now, I have not a moment to lose." This diary, given up after a few months, reveals her devotion to her work. She records hours upon hours of "steady work," chastising herself for "wast[ing] time" through daily tasks like going to tea and changing her dress.[13] She was also friendly with other key figures in the Victorian literary and artistic world, like writer Vernon Lee.[22] or c. 1886), Russell-Cotes Museum, Bournemouth

Collections

Her works are held in The De Morgan Collection, The De Morgan Museum at Cannon Hall, Barnsley, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; National Trust properties Wightwick Manor and Knightshayes Court; Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, National Portrait Gallery; Southwark Art Collection.

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. 45491. Evelyn De Morgan.
  2. Book: Lawton Smith, Elise. Evelyn Pickering De Morgan and the Allegorical Body. 2002. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. 978-0-8386-3883-5.
  3. Book: Gordon, Catherine . Evelyn de Morgan: Oil Paintings. 1996. De Morgan Foundation. 978-0-9528141-0-8. 14.
  4. Book: Rose, Lucy Ella . Suffragist Artists in Partnership: Gender, Word and Image . 2017. Edinburgh University Press. 978-1-4744214-5-4.
  5. Merkling . Emma . 2023-07-10 . Physics, Psychical Research, and the Self: Evelyn De Morgan's Spiritualist Portraits . Art History . en . 10.1111/1467-8365.12726 . 0141-6790.
  6. Book: Stirling, Anna Wilhelmina . William De Morgan and His Wife. 1922. Henry Holt and Company. 144.
  7. [File:Evelyn de Morgan - Our Lady of Peace, 1907.jpg|thumb|''[[Our Lady of Peace]], 1907]
  8. For the first half of their marriage, De Morgan used the profits from sales of her work to help financially support her husband's pottery business; she also actively contributed ideas to his ceramics designs. The De Morgans finally achieved financial security in 1906 after the publication of William's first novel, Joseph Vance.[7]

  9. Personal life

    In August 1883, Evelyn met the ceramicist William De Morgan (the son of the mathematician Augustus De Morgan), and on 5 March 1887, they married. They spent their lives together in London, visiting Florence for half the year every year from 1895 until the outbreak of WWI in 1914. Evelyn De Morgan supported the suffrage movement, and she appears as a signatory on the Declaration in Favour of Women's Suffrage of 1889. She was also a pacifist and expressed her horror about the First World War and Boer War in over fifteen war paintings including The Red Cross and S.O.S. In 1916, she held a benefit exhibition of these works at her studio in Edith Grove in support of the Red Cross and Italian Croce Rossa.[7]

  10. Book: [De Morgan] . [Evelyn and William] . The Result of an Experiment . 1909 . Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent . London.
  11. Web site: Merkling . Emma . Evelyn De Morgan's Reading Lists: A Discovery in the Archives . De Morgan Collection . The De Morgan Foundation . 8 October 2020.
  12. Web site: Evelyn de Morgan, Symbolism, Feminism and Mysticism. 2021-03-10. www.talismanfineart.com.
  13. PhD. Drawmer. Lois Jane . 2001. The Impact of Science and Spiritualism in the Works of Evelyn De Morgan, 1870-1919 (PhD Dissertation). Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College. 31.
  14. She also studied under Watts's student, her uncle John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, who had a great influence on her visual style. Beginning in 1875, Evelyn often visited him in Florence where he lived. This enabled her to study the great artists of the Renaissance; the influence of Quattrocento artists like Botticelli is especially visible in her works from this point onwards. After this period, De Morgan's art began to move away from the more traditional, classical subjects and style favoured by the Slade School towards a development of her own particular, mature style. Through Stanhope, De Morgan also developed friendships with Pre-Raphaelite painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt.[13]
  15. [13]
  16. De Morgan was known to George Frederic Watts from infancy, and while developing as an artist she would often visit him at his studio-home, Little Holland House.[13]
  17. She eventually left Slade to work more independently.[13]
  18. At Slade, she was awarded the prestigious Slade Scholarship and won several awards: the Prize and Silver Medal for Painting from the Antique; First Certificate for Drawing from the Antique; and Third Equal Certificate for Composition.[13]
  19. In 1872, she was enrolled at the South Kensington National Art Training School (today the Royal College of Art) and in 1873 moved to the Slade School of Art.[13]
  20. Stirling recounts another incident in which De Morgan rejected further attempts to introduce her to society: "It was...suggested to Evelyn that she might like to go into Society and see a little of the world, but she jumped to a conclusion respecting this process which was clearly unjustifiable in her case. 'No one shall drag me out with a halter round my neck to sell me!' was her uncompromising rejoinder."[13]
  21. According to Stirling, De Morgan was interested in little other than painting and fought hard to be considered seriously as an artist. She rebelled against any efforts to turn her into an "idle" woman, and when her mother suggested she be presented to society, De Morgan rejoined: "I'll go to the Drawing Room if you like...but if I go, I'll kick the Queen!"[13]
  22. [File:Evelyn De Morgan - The Salutation, 1883-4.jpg|thumb|''The Salutation, ([[Visitation (Christianity)|The Visitation]]) 1883-4]

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