Gwen John was born in Haverfordwest in 1876, the second of five children to Edwin, a solicitor and his wife Augusta. Augusta died when Gwen was 8 years old and the family moved to Tenby. She and her sister were educated by governesses, but she entertained herself by sketching objects found on the seashore.
In 1895, she enrolled as a student at the Slade School of Art, which was the only art school in the UK that allowed female students and her earliest known work dates from that year. The school was run like a Renaissance Bottega with students apprenticed to a master, in Gwen’s case, Henry Tonks. In 1898 she won the Melvill Nettleship Prize for Figure Composition and had an unhappy affair with Ambrose McEvoy, who subsequently married Mary Edwards.
In 1898 she made her first trip to Paris and Studied at the Academie Carmen, the school run by Whistler. The fruits of this visit to Paris were exhibited at the New English Art Club in 1900.
She returned to Paris in 1904 with Dorelia McNeill, the lover of her talented and flamboyant brother, Augustus. Hilda Flodin introduced her to Rodin for whom she modelled. He was the most famous artist of the period and despite his being 35 years her senior, the two became lovers. Gwen cast a wide net sexually ensnaring both men and women. The one constant in these relationships, was how she became fixated with the objects of her desire. She wrote thousands of impassioned letters to Rodin! When the affair (with Rodin) came to an end, she embraced Catholicism and moved into a flat in Meudon, a suburb of Paris, which would become her home for the rest of her life.
Despite knowing Picasso, Matisse, Brancusi and other leading lights in the artistic circles of early 20th Century Paris, her style is very quiet and personal. She painted small canvases, seldom bigger than 24 ins square, of which 158 survive, and thousands of watercolours and drawings. Her palette is muted – greys, fawns, powder blue and occasionally dark reds, the paint applied in small square dabs.
She acquired a rich patron in John Quinn, an American collector, around 1910 and he bought most of her output until his death in 1924, although she did take part in some joint shows.
Around 1913 she started painting a series of portraits of Mère Marie Poussepin, who had founded the Dominican Sisters of Charity at Meudon, where Gwen lived, in the late 17th Century. Marie is depicted, three-quarter length, seated with her hands clasped in her lap, and this format was to become a stock image in her portraiture for the rest of her life. Anonymous young women in the same pose in quiet interiors.
Gwen lived in solitude herself, in Meudon, with her cats, finding quietude suited the way she worked. She did not like distractions, although there was one last romantic liaison, with Véra Oumançoff, the sister-in-law of Jacques Maritain, the philosopher, who was her neighbour and spiritual guide. This affair lasted until 1930, after which she painted very little and probably starved herself to death in Dieppe on September 18th 1939.
Her vivacious, extravagant and gifted brother, Augustus, outshone her in her lifetime, but he was aware that the subtle and intimate portraits and interiors of his sister may prove to be more enduring. “In 50 years’ time I will be known as the brother of Gwen John”. This seems to have turned out to be a prescient remark, certainly as far as auction results are concerned. The world record, for an Augustus John is £ 214,000 for a work sold at Christie’s, London, in November 2024, whereas Gwen’s top price is £403,200 for Girl in a Blue Dress, also at Christie’s a month earlier!
David Dallas joined Christie’s in 1969, where he was the youngest person in a Technical Department (Old Masters). He subsequently became deputy head of the Picture Department at Phillips Son and Neale and ended his auctioneering career as International Director (Global Head) of Old Masters at Bonham’s in January 2015.