When I was researching material for this book, I turned a page and a doorway opened. On that page the sculptor Joseph Nollekens recalled a secret his mother had told him as a child in the 1700s – the one place in London from which you could see the entrances to nine streets.
Almost three centuries later, I walked down Moor Street in Soho on a grey November day and stood in the footsteps of a man who had been dead since 1823. I carried his words with me:
Stand here, and you will see the entrances of nine streets; my mother showed them to me … don’t turn your head, only your eyes … There, now look to the left, is not there Monmouth-street? Now let your eye run along over the way to the first opening, that’s Great White Lion-street; well, now bring your eye back to the opposite street in front of you, that’s Little Earl-street. Throw your eye over the Seven Dials, and you will see Queen-street and Earl-street; well, now look on the right of Little Earl-street, and you will see Tower-street; well, now stand still, mind, don’t move, bring your eye back towards you, and turn it a little to the right, and you will see West-street; bring it nearer to the right, and there’s Grafton-street; and then, look down at your toes, and you’ll find yourself standing in Moor Street.
If you go to Moor Street and stand with that long-ago child and his mother, you will see that many things have changed since the 1700s. Buildings now obscure the view across the fields to Seven Dials. Many of the streets have been renamed, and Grafton Street, as Nollekens knew it, has vanished completely to make room for Charing Cross Road. Nevertheless, the secret vista is still there. You just have to know which doorway to open.
When I began researching artists’ models of the early twentieth century, I questioned whether this was a doorway worth opening. Was it important to shed light on the contributions of anonymous young women in London, or was it sufficient that the famous few had their say? Very quickly I found that there was no real distinction. All of these women were part of the great creative heart of London – and while they may not seem like feminists to our twenty-first-century eyes, the personal choices they made were uncommonly independent for the time.
It is fitting, then, that the genesis of this book was a moment in Oxford Street when I stood in front of Selfridges and looked up at the face of the sculpture called The Queen of Time. I decided in that moment that I would find out who that model was and how she lived. I know that woman now – Leopoldine Avico – due to the generosity of Christine Bassett, her niece.
Christine is the daughter of Leopoldine’s sister Gilda, who was also a model. I am grateful to Christine for sharing her recollections about the Avico family’s involvement in the arts. Her intuitive pursuit of the past has been personally inspiring to me, and our collaboration has grown into a valued friendship. It is a privilege to bring her family’s story to light.
I also want to acknowledge the support I received from the many London archivists who were unfailingly helpful to me in my enquiries. And I am indebted to my friend Deena Maniscalchi for her invaluable advice and her keen eye for nuance in language.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the countless unsung women of London’s art history. The practices of the day and the fog of time have conspired to keep these women anonymous. As a result, my work is far from inclusive of all the models that mattered in London, even given the parameters of female models living in the early twentieth century.
The women I have chosen to include reflect my belief that the famous and the anonymous deserve to take their places side by side. They are equal in the sense that they all made bold personal choices at a time when women were still struggling to establish their own identities. I have followed these women down more than nine streets, into studios and schools, police courts and clubs, and home to their families. What I found were women who were often nameless but well worth knowing.
As Virginia Woolf – herself the daughter of a Pre-Raphaelite model – wrote in Jacob’s Room, ‘The streets of London have their map; but our passions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner?’