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Gwen John, 1876–1939

Study of a Nun

ca. 1915

Gwen John trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1895 to 1898, a school noted for its progressive teaching and acceptance of female students. She moved to Paris in 1903, where she remained for the rest of her life. A reserved but tenacious personality, she formed few but intense relationships, including with the poet Rainer Rilke and sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom she served as the model for his unfinished monument to Whistler. She converted to Catholicism in 1913 during a time of intense anticlericalism from France’s Third Republic. Portraits of nuns featured regularly in her studies of the life in and around the convent of the Dominican Sisters of Charity in Meudon, the suburb of Paris where she lived. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020

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Gwen John, 1876–1939, Study of a Nun, ca. 1915, Oil on board laid to panel, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1993.30.14.
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Gwen John trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1895 to 1898, a school noted for its progressive teaching and acceptance of female students. She moved to Paris in 1903, where she remained for the rest of her life. A reserved but tenacious personality, she formed few but intense relationships, including with the poet Rainer Rilke and sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom she served as the model for his unfinished monument to Whistler. She converted to Catholicism in 1913 during a time of intense anticlericalism from France’s Third Republic. Portraits of nuns featured regularly in her studies of the life in and around the convent of the Dominican Sisters of Charity in Meudon, the suburb of Paris where she lived. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020
Created by Gwen John (1876–1939), the artist; bequest to her nephew, Edwin John (1905–1978) [1][a]; assigned to Matthiesen Gallery Ltd., London, 1940 [2]; assigned to Faerber and Maison, London, 1963 [3]; acquired by Maynard Walker Gallery, New York, 1965 [4]; purchased by Paul Mellon (1907–1999), 1966; by whom given to the Yale Center for British Art, October 1993.

Notes:
[1] After Gwen John's death in 1939, her nephew, Edwin John (1905–1978), traveled to Meudon, retrieved her remaining works from her Rue Terre Neuve home, and brought them back to England. The fourth son of artist Augustus John (1878–1961), Edwin followed the artistic paths of both his father and aunt, becoming a watercolorist. He maintained a close relationship with his aunt until her death and was the sole executor of her estate.

[2] In August 1940, Matthiesen Gallery held a memorial exhibition of John’s paintings and drawings at Wildenstein & Co., London. This exhibition marks the beginning of Matthiesen Gallery’s representation of the Gwen John Estate.

[3] Following the Matthiesen Gallery’s closure in 1963, former associate Stefanie Maison represented the Gwen John Estate as Faerber and Maison until 1973, and, thereafter, under her own name.

[4] Maynard Walker (1896 –1985) was an American art dealer and collector who established the Maynard Walker Gallery in New York around 1935. Walker likely purchased this painting following Faerber and Maison’s 1964 Gwen John exhibition held from November 13 to December 12, 1964. The painting was listed as no. 6 in the exhibition catalog.
Gwen John trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1895 to 1898, a school noted for its progressive teaching and acceptance of female students. She moved to Paris in 1903, where she remained for the rest of her life. A reserved but tenacious personality, she formed few but intense relationships, including with the poet Rainer Rilke and sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom she served as the model for his unfinished monument to Whistler. She converted to Catholicism in 1913 during a time of intense anticlericalism from France’s Third Republic. Portraits of nuns featured regularly in her studies of the life in and around the convent of the Dominican Sisters of Charity in Meudon, the suburb of Paris where she lived.
Gwen John became a Roman Catholic in 1913, two years after she moved into lodgings above a house in the rue Terre Neuve in Meudon, about twelve miles outside Paris. She had initially admired the habits worn by the Sisters of Charity, who ran a local orphanage, and undertook to paint for the Mother Superior a posthumous portrait of the foundress of the order, Mère Poussepin, based on an image on the back of a prayer card. Not surprisingly, she found the task difficult. Nevertheless, the episode is important because subsequently it seems that Gwen John continued to be interested not so much in creating portraits of individual nuns, but in evoking something of the condition, the asceticism, and remoteness of religious life. She engaged professional artists' models to pose for her nun pictures, probably because the sisters were either unwilling or not allowed to sit for portraits.

Figuring Women - The Female in Modern British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-03-28 - 2008-06-08) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

20th Century Paintings and Sculpture (Yale Center for British Art, 2000-01-27 - 2000-04-30) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Juxtapositions (Yale Center for British Art, 1997-11-19 - 1998-01-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Cecily Langdale, Gwen John : With a Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings and a Selection of the Drawings, , Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987, pp. 51, 59, 60, 148-149, no. 43, pl. 199, NJ18 J594 A12 L25 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 1, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

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