IN JANUARY THEIR class at the Slade studied anatomy. Grace felt queasy as she contemplated the tall skeleton placed in front of them, with its skull and gaping bare eye sockets, nose and mouth.
‘Professor Thane must have borrowed him from the medical school,’ whispered Minnie.
‘Look at the arms and shoulders, ladies, please. Do you notice the joints of the elbows and the knees and the hips and spine? You must study these well so that, if you ever hope to, you can accurately re-create and paint the human form.’
Grace sketched it all quickly on her pad, taking great care over the sockets and joints and where bones met. The human skeleton was a miracle when you imagined flesh, muscle, tissue and veins covering it. Every Monday and Thursday afternoon Professor Thane also used live models to demonstrate the movement and shape of bones, joints and muscles, often marking muscle in colour on the skin of whoever was modelling for them.
Grace had returned home with Ernest to see her family at Christmas. Nellie, Muriel and Sidney interrogated her about her exploits in London and wanted to know if there were any romances, of which so far there were unfortunately none.
While in Dublin she attended the opening of art dealer Hugh Lane’s Municipal Gallery in Harcourt Street, which housed some of his fine collection of French Impressionists, though his intention was to build a much larger gallery in the city to house his growing collection of modern art. Grace was entranced by this new style of painting, which somehow managed to capture the quality of light in a way artists hadn’t done before and which gloriously demonstrated a new, unique interpretation of a subject – ‘the artist’s impression’, as Hugh Lane called it.
She experimented back in London, painting in this style briefly, but soon realized that she far preferred to work in a medium that involved strong, broad lines with definition and simple colour, for drawing gave her the greatest pleasure. She once again found herself doing quick sketches of her lecturers and fellow students, and in only a few strokes of black ink seemed to be able to capture their personality and physical traits. Professor Tonks, who taught figure drawing and painting, was very encouraging as he studied an ink portrait that she’d done of Professor Brown and some of their other lecturers.
‘Grace, you are talented at line drawing and caricatures. You display great flair for design and illustration rather than ordinary portraiture.’
Alice, Grace and Minnie all enjoyed landscape painting, Mary Lane was a very fine portrait painter, while Theodora’s illustration work was full of tiny details, pleats, bows and beads, for she loved to draw and sketch fashion. Grace, on the other hand, hated including these fussy things and wanted just to sweep her black ink pen over the page and capture in almost one go the person she was drawing or a scene from a play or book that she had recently seen or read.
Grace attended lectures and talks held by the Women’s Social Political Union. She and her friends were all supporters of the suffragettes and their campaign to get the vote for women.
As her last term at the Slade approached, Grace began to wish that she could stay in London for ever, finding some kind of work that would enable her to be independent and continue to live in the city.
‘Maybe we could share a flat together,’ suggested Minnie and Theodora.
She responded to various advertisements looking for sketch artists for journals and newspapers, but had no success, and the galleries she visited all seemed to have enough artists without taking on the work of an unknown young Irish woman.
‘Grace, don’t keep thinking about it,’ advised Mary, who was returning to her home at Vernon Mount in Cork. ‘Enjoy being here and these last few weeks at the Slade.’
Also, Charlie Taylor, a handsome young law student, had invited her out. She’d been to the college’s law ball with him, as well as to the theatre and a dinner party at his best friend’s home in Belgravia. They took long walks around the nearby park together and spent hours talking in tea-rooms and cafés near the college. Grace looked forward to seeing Charlie, hearing his voice and spending time with him.
The exams came and she sat up late studying, trying to memorize the various Italian, French and German art schools, the masters and artists and their work. She was also frantically trying to finish her own project and three pieces for her final exhibition at the end of June.
‘I have to study for my exams,’ she told Charlie, who found it hard to accept that she was serious and had to study, paint and draw instead of joining him for lunch or tea.
‘Does it really matter that much?’ he argued.
‘Yes!’ she snapped, fiercely annoyed with him. ‘It does matter. Art is what I do, surely you understand that?’
She could tell from his wounded expression that he didn’t, but was one of those men who believed that a woman should not aspire to work or have a career, or for that matter to vote.
Disappointed in each other, the very brief relationship petered out and Grace realized that she could never get involved with such a man, no matter how handsome and charming he appeared.
The suffragettes were planning a large rally in Hyde Park in June, and she and her friends were determined to take part. Grace and Minnie were despatched to MacCulloch & Wallis, the large haberdashery store in Poland Street, to buy yards and yards of ribbon in the suffragette colours – purple, white and green – for everyone. If only Grace had Mother’s sewing machine, she would have been able to run up a stylish dress in the colours, but, instead, she would have to make do with trimming an outfit.
‘Thirty yards of purple ribbon?’ queried the pretty young shop attendant. She could not believe her luck as she unrolled and measured yard after yard of ribbons for the female students of the Slade.
‘It’s for the rally next Sunday,’ Grace confided. ‘We are all supporters of Mrs Pankhurst.’
‘My sister and I are going too, as are most of the girls here,’ she said quietly, hoping the shop manager would not overhear her.
‘Perhaps we will see you in the park.’ Minnie grinned as they gathered up their purchases.
As they set off on Sunday to join the rally, they all wore dresses, skirts and blouses in the suffragette colours. They made the multicoloured ribbons into sashes, belts and bows as well as tying them gaily around their hats.
The sun shone as Grace and her friends marched from Kensington to Hyde Park behind tall banners, shouting loudly ‘Votes for Women!’ and arrived to form an enormous crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters of the movement. Even little girls and children sported the coloured ribbons in their plaits, braids and hairbands. Grace had never seen anything like it – so many women united in one cause.
They gave a roaring cheer as Emmeline Pankhurst, flanked by her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, blinking in the sunshine, stood proudly to address them. They could see she was clearly overwhelmed by the massive reception from all the women, young and old, who were present.
‘Even I am shocked by this huge crowd before me,’ she said, gazing at the crowd of about three hundred thousand women. ‘Thank you so much for making the effort to attend today. Deeds, not words, have always been our motto and your presence is absolute proof of the support for our campaign for votes for women.’
Listening to Mrs Pankhurst’s conviction and belief in the fight for women’s rights, and looking around her at the sea of female faces of all ages, full of hope and desperate for change, Grace knew that it was only a matter of time until all women were considered equal to men and given the vote, and that it was the duty of young women like her to continue to campaign for it.
Ernest came to the final-year show at the Slade, declaring in his brotherly fashion that her work was astounding. She had designed a selection of theatre posters, programmes and illustrations, along with ink portraits, including some of her friends and some of the college’s esteemed artists. There was also a fine display of her life drawing and a range of prints based on Greek design.
Grace had written to Mother and Father requesting permission to stay on in London for a few months, but the reply had been very clear. Grace was too young and was expected back home in Dublin immediately.
‘My parents want me back on the Isle of Wight,’ complained Minnie.
‘Grace and I planned to go to Paris,’ confided Alice, ‘but Father is being difficult about it.’
They may have graduated from the Slade but, disappointingly, it made no difference to what any of them could do; they were single young women with no source of income or support other than their families. As she packed up her clothes and art materials for the journey home to Ireland, Grace wondered if she would ever return to work and exhibit in London.