Each of the female models identified in this book – famous, infamous or anonymous – contributed to the arts of early twentieth-century London by choosing to act on the opportunities at hand. They range from charwomen to aristocrats, with motivations just as diverse: income, fame, love, prestige, vanity, lust, patriotism or simple curiosity. Some were artists themselves. Based on the single parity of personal choice, they have become part of this story.
Andrée, Ellen – (b. circa 1856 France, d. 1933). The multi-talented Andrée was an actress, comedienne and artists’ model who sat for Édouard Manet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, André Gill and others. She famously posed as an absinthe drinker for Degas’s reviled painting Dans un café (later The absinthe drinkers) and consequently had to contend with the public’s assumption that she was an alcoholic.
Angus (Sickert), Christine – (b. circa 1877 England, d. 1920). Angus was an art student who became the much younger second wife of the artist Walter Sickert. She served as a model for her husband in domestic scenes. Her death from tuberculosis, shortly after the couple purchased a house in France, caused Sickert to spiral into depression.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia – (b. 1887 England, d. 1960). Socialite, author and personal secretary to the writer J.M. Barrie, Asquith would inherit most of his estate. She became known as an author of ghost stories and writings about the British Royal family. Later she served as an editor of anthologies. Asquith sat for portraits by Edmund Dulac, Augustus John, Ambrose McEvoy, John Singer Sargent and others.
Aubicq, Yvonne – (France, dates unknown). A mistress of William Orpen, Aubicq met the painter during the First World War when she was a young nurse and he was a British war artist. Aubicq is best known for her semi-draped pose in Orpen’s 1917 painting The Refugee. The work was later renamed The Spy by Orpen to coincide with an outrageous story he told to a War Office official.
Avico, Gilda – (b. 1908 England, d. 2001). The youngest of the three Avico sisters, she reigned over life classes at the Slade for fifteen years and sat anonymously for artists such as Ivon Hitchens and C.R.W. Nevinson. Her photogenic features often appeared in newspaper coverage of Chelsea Arts Ball tableaus, paving the way for a commercial modelling career.
Avico, Leopoldine – (b. 1907 England, d. 1979). The middle-born of the three Avico sisters, she enjoyed the greatest longevity as a professional model. Her most iconic pose is as The Queen of Time, the Gilbert Bayes sculpture in which her figure towers over the entrance of Selfridges department store in London. Avico also modelled for Herbert William Palliser’s Bacchante (Spirit of the Grape Harvest), installed at Vintry House in 1929, as well as other sculptural works and paintings.
Avico, Marietta – (b. 1906 England, d. 1983). The eldest of the three Avico sisters, she opened a gateway to modelling for her siblings. Her Italianate features and form drew the attention of the painter John William Godward, who used her almost exclusively as a model from early 1921 until his death eighteen months later. Avico is also associated with Titania’s Palace as a model, and as a character in the Yvette series of books.
Barnes, Cissie – (b. 1910 England, d. 1979). The daughter of a fisherman from Newlyn West, Cornwall, the teenage Barnes posed numerous times for the artist Dod Procter. Procter’s painting Morning, featuring a dozing Barnes, was shown at the Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1927 and was awarded Picture of the Year.
Barrett, Mrs – (England, dates unknown). A mystery model used by Walter Sickert, Barrett was identified as a London dressmaker in the artist’s 1906 note to one of his mistresses. Her identity remains a source of widespread speculation. A model identified by the artist as Mrs Barrett also appears in various Sickert works styled in a range of clothing, from affluent dress to coster (street vendor) garb.
Barry, Iris – (b. 1895 England, d. 1969). A renowned British film critic and curator, Barry first was a protégé of Ezra Pound and companion to the artist Wyndham Lewis from 1918 to 1921, when she bore him two children. She memorably sat for his painting Praxitella, a fearsome portrait exhibited in 1921 in which Barry is ensconced in an armchair looking like a giant insect.
Beerbohm, Agnes – (b. 1865 England, d. 1949). Beerbohm was a mistress of the artist Walter Sickert while he was married to his first wife, Nellie Cobden. Fond of fancy dress, she may have posed for Sickert for several paintings in costume, although the titles name her sister Marie. The Beerbohm family was a literary and acting dynasty that included the actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his model-actress daughters, Iris, Viola and Felicity.
Beerbohm, Marie – (b. circa 1890 England, d. unknown). Marie was a great friend of the artist Nina Hamnett, with whom she spent time in Paris in the social circles of Picasso, Brancusi and other modernists. She met Walter Sickert through her sister Agnes and through Hamnett, who had a flat across the street from Sickert’s Fitzrovia studio. All three women would model for Sickert from time to time.
Bell, Vanessa – (b. 1879 England, d. 1961). An influential painter and interior designer, Bell (née Stephen) is credited with co-founding the Bloomsbury Group with her sister Virginia Woolf. Bell modelled extensively for Bloomsbury members and achieved critical acclaim as a painter. She may be best known for the cultural community she nurtured at Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex and for the distinctive style of decorative art she developed at Omega Workshops in London.
Bingham, Henrietta – (b. 1901 United States, d. 1968). Bingham was born into enormous wealth as the wild-child daughter of Robert Worth Bingham, a Kentucky newspaper publisher and politician. Her escapades personified the devil-may-care excesses of the Jazz Age. In England, where her father served as US ambassador, she took numerous lovers of both sexes and embarked on an affair with Dora Carrington, appearing as a subject in several of her paintings.
Boreel, Wendela – (b. 1895 France, d. 1985). Boreel was the daughter of a Dutch diplomat father and an American mother. She grew up in England and studied art at the Slade School and at the Westminster Technical Institute. Boreel became an accomplished gouache painter and etcher. Walter Sickert first noticed her at Westminster – she was his student, apprentice and mistress, and sometimes served as his model.
Boughton-Leigh, Chloë (Ellen) – (b. circa 1868 England, d. 1947). Ellen Theodosia Ward-Boughton-Leigh’s family called her Chloë – a name that would become associated with paintings by Gwen John. John met the Boughton-Leigh sisters, Chloë and Maude, when the three were students together at the Slade School. Chloë became John’s lifelong friend and posed numerous times for her, resulting in works of exceptional sincerity.
Carline, Hilda – (b. 1889 England, d. 1950). Carline (m. Spencer) is known as the first wife of the artist Stanley Spencer and as a sitter for some of his most famous works. She was also a renowned painter in her own right. Her 1923 Selfportrait depicts her as a candid, self-possessed modern woman two years before her marriage to Spencer and the erosion of her life. Divorced in 1937, she began to paint again despite poor health.
Carrington, Dora – (b. 1893 England, d. 1932). An intriguing second-generation affiliate of the broader Bloomsbury circle, Carrington was the daughter of a merchant and made waves at the Slade School by cutting her hair short. Her talents as a painter and decorative artist were overshadowed by her lack of confidence and by her deep devotion to the writer Lytton Strachey – a passion that would endure until his death and hers. She is the subject of numerous Bloomsbury portraits.
Carter, Zillah – (b. 1905 England, d. 1985). Carter, the daughter of noted actor Hubert Carter, had some success herself on the stage and later in film. Along with other actress–models of the time, she used the London social scene as a way to network in the arts community. C.R.W. Nevinson painted a striking portrait of Carter entitled Zillah, of the Hambone; it was exhibited at the opening of the Ham-Bone Club in 1922.
Cavell, Edith – (b. 1865 England, d. 1915). Cavell became a symbol of British fortitude when she was executed by a German firing squad on 12 October 1915. The First World War nurse is credited with working with Belgian and French colleagues to help more than 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied areas. Cavell is an exception as a model in that she never chose to pose for portraits. The countless representations of her in art were created posthumously in her honour.
Chaplin, Edith Helen – (b. 1878 England, d. 1959). Born into aristocracy, Chaplin married Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, in 1899 and became Marchioness of Londonderry. She was appointed Colonel-in-Chief of the newly established Women’s Volunteer Reserve in 1914 and became the first Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Military Division. The many portraits of her show a strong woman evolving during wartime and peacetime.
Charlton, Daphne – (b. 1909 England, d. 1991). Charlton was an artist and the wife of George Charlton, a teacher at the Slade School where she trained. Variously described as a gorgon and an enchantress, she is the subject of notable portraits by Mary Adshead and by Stanley Spencer, with whom she had an affair. Charlton proved to be a lifeline for Spencer after the breakdown of his second marriage – she reportedly sat for weeks for his 1940 portrait Daphne, wearing a hat she bought in Bond Street for the occasion.
Chicken – See Powell, Emily.
Cobden (Sickert), Ellen – (b. 1848 England, d. 1914). Ellen (Nellie) Cobden was an English novelist and the first wife of the artist Walter Sickert, whom she divorced for adultery. Cobden’s father was a radical politician who raised his daughter to be a cultivated woman. Sickert commissioned two portraits of her from James McNeill Whistler: Arrangement in Violet and Pink: Mrs Walter Sickert and Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert.
Cooper, Lady Diana – (b. 1892 England, d. 1986). Born Lady Diana Manners, Cooper was a legendary British beauty equally at home among bohemian artists, Jazz Age swells, the Corrupt Coterie and the political elite. The youngest daughter of the 8th Duke of Rutland, she married Sir Alfred Duff Cooper, a First World War hero. Her reputation as the most beautiful woman in England made her irresistible as a sitter to artists and photographers alike.
Cunard, Nancy – (b. 1896 England, d. 1965). Cunard was the very definition of a rebel heiress, a fierce civil rights activist and an unapologetic participant in the fast life of London, New York and the Continent. She became known as a muse, publisher, poet, editor and newspaper correspondent. Cunard was painted by Oskar Kokoschka and Alvaro Guevara, and posed for one of Constantin Brancusi’s most famous sculptures. In 1927 she set up The Hours Press in Normandy to support experimental young writers.
Daurmont, Hélène – (Belgium, dates unknown). Hélène may have worked as a charwoman in London after arriving from France. Together with her sister Jeanne, she posed as a model for Walter Sickert for a period of about three months in the spring of 1906. Sickert introduced himself to the Daurmont sisters after he overheard them speaking to a policeman in French on a London street – they were trying to buy coffee, having just travelled to England.
Daurmont, Jeanne – (Belgium, dates unknown). Jeanne, the sister of Hélène, claimed she was a London milliner. The Belgian-born sisters posed as models for Walter Sickert in the spring of 1906 at his Fitzroy Street studio. One of the best-known paintings from that time is The Cigarette (Jeanne Daurmont), in which a bare-shouldered Jeanne is shown in profile wearing only in a hat. Interviewed over half a century later, Daurmont would remember Sickert as a nice man who gave her cigarettes when she grew tired from posing.
dell’Acqua, Carolina – (Italy, dates unknown). Walter Sickert was captivated by the landscapes of Venice, but his epiphany came when bad weather forced him to paint indoors. It was then that he started to experiment with figures in domestic interiors defined by light and shadow. During his regular returns to Venice between 1895 and 1904, Sickert’s favourite models were the prostitutes La Giuseppina and Carolina dell’Acqua. In A Marengo, the two women are shown gossiping together on a bed.
Dennis, Cecilia – (England, dates unknown). The raven-haired Dennis came to the attention of the public when the artist Mark Gertler committed suicide in his studio on 23 June 1939, a half-finished portrait of her nearby. Dennis was widely quoted in the newspapers as ‘Gertler’s favourite model’, a title she may have bestowed on herself. There is some indication that she also sat for members of the Bloomsbury Group.
Devas, Nicolette – (b. 1911 England, d. 1987). Devas (née Macnamara) was the daughter of eccentric Irish poet Francis Macnamara and his Anglo-French wife. The impoverished family moved frequently, eventually settling close to Freyn Court where Augustus John and Dorelia McNeill lived a bohemian, communal life. Despite a budding career as an artist, Devas chose to concentrate on writing. Two Flamboyant Fathers is an autobiographical account of her childhood with Francis Macnamara and Augustus John.
Dolores – (b. 1894 England, d. 1934). Norine Schofield was a London-born model who inherited the performance gene from her father, a professional dancer and vocalist. Her parents financed her early dance training, but it wasn’t until Schofield moved to Paris under the stage name Dolores that she came into her own. Returning to London, she thrived on the bohemian scene. Her most significant contributions as a model were in sitting for Jacob Epstein, who became her friend.
Eaton, Fanny – (b. 1835 Jamaica, d. 1924). Eaton (née Antwistle) would not have thought of herself as a trailblazer, but her work paved the way for models of colour in the early twentieth century. Upon arriving in England at the age of 16, she worked as a servant, married, had ten children and began modelling to help pay the bills. Her Pre-Raphaelite features quickly secured her a position as a portrait sitter at the Royal Academy, as well as studio work with renowned painters such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Elvery, Beatrice – (b. 1883 Ireland, d. 1970). Elvery was born into a well-known merchant family in Dublin and attended that city’s Metropolitan School of Art, where William Orpen taught painting. She was Orpen’s student and became his model and friend. The two corresponded regularly – Orpen from London, where he relocated, and Elvery from Ireland, where she lived with her husband, the 2nd Baron Glenavy. She was a fixture in Dublin’s social circles of literature and art.
Esther – (surname, nationality, dates unknown). Esther and her sister Rebecca were reportedly half-Jewish adolescents who sat for Jacob Epstein in the 1930s. Their dusky skin, dark eyes and distinctive features place them in the category of models of colour. By some accounts, Esther performed in nightclubs and developed more of a career as a professional model than did her sister Rebecca. Beyond that, very little is known about their identities.
Feilding, Lady Dorothie – (b. 1889 England, d. 1939). Feilding was one of ten children of the 9th Earl of Denbigh. She volunteered as a nurse and an ambulance driver in the First World War, transporting patients from the Front to the field hospital in Veurne. She was the first woman to be awarded the British Military Medal for bravery, and received the Croix de guerre from France and the Order of Leopold from Belgium. A drawing by General Hely d’Oissel shows Lady Feilding and a dog watching a bomb explode overhead.
Fitzjohn, Yvette – (b. circa 1910 England, d. unknown). Fitzjohn was the young daughter of a friend of the artist Nevile Wilkinson. Wilkinson would tell her fairy stories as he painted to make her stop squirming, and that experience led him to write a fairy tale, Yvette in Italy. The book became a series sold for charity. In each tale, Yvette travels to a different country accompanied by her real-life friend Marietta Avico, who would herself grow up to become an artists’ model.
Forrest, Nina – See Lamb, Euphemia.
Fry, (Sarah) Margery – (b. 1874 England, d. 1958). Fry was a powerful voice for prison reform and social betterment in Britain. Born to Quaker parents, she was the sister of the art critic Roger Fry and through him became friends with the Bloomsbury Group. In 1921 she was appointed one of the first women magistrates in Britain. Fry was an infrequent sitter but a compelling presence, as seen in the 1939 portrait Margery Fry by Claude Rogers.
Garman, Kathleen – (b. 1901 England, d. 1979). Garman had a reputation for scandalous behaviour and was already established as an artists’ model when she met Jacob Epstein in 1921. They had three children together. Garman was witty, intelligent and charming, with a rare beauty – she became Epstein’s most influential muse as his mistress and, later, as his second wife.
Garnett, Angelica – (b. 1918 England, d. 2012). Garnett (née Bell) was the daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, although she grew up thinking her father was Vanessa’s husband Clive Bell. Embraced by a disparate creative group as the ‘daughter of Bloomsbury,’ she had an unconventional upbringing that would inform her adult work as a writer and an artist. She appears as the subject in numerous artworks and photographs that document her life.
Germany, Grace – See Higgens, Grace.
Gilbert, Lilian – (England, dates unknown). Gilbert is generally identified as the pensive young woman who served as the model for several major works by Dod Procter, including Girl with a Parrot (circa 1925). She was a local Cornish girl, a resident of Newlyn where Procter lived and worked. Records from the late 1920s show that Gilbert (as Mrs Brood) also modelled for Harold Harvey, another Newlyn School painter.
Gunn Children – (b. 1920s Scotland, d. unknown). Pauline, Diana and Elizabeth were the children of the painter Herbert James Gunn from his first marriage. That union ended badly, and the children were wrongly told that Gunn had deserted them. When he came across the girls and their nurse by chance on a London outing, he made arrangements to paint them in secret. Gunn would find renewed inspiration in his second wife, Pauline, and reunite with his children as adults.
Hamnett, Nina – (b. 1890 Wales, d. 1956). Hamnett was a flamboyant artist who lived an unconventional lifestyle, dividing her time between London and Paris from 1911 through the 1920s. She became friends with towering names in art, including Amedeo Modigliani, Augustus John and Walter Sickert. Hamnett exhibited at the Royal Academy and worked with Roger Fry at the Omega Workshops. The many portraits of her trace her life from glorious independence to poverty and squalor as she succumbed to alcoholism.
Hamonet, Marie – (b. circa 1907 France, d. unknown). Hamonet was a young resident of Pléneuf, a village on the north coast of Brittany, France. This was where the artist Gwen John travelled in 1918 and 1919 to recover from her lover Rodin’s death. Hamonet frequently posed for John during this period, as did a second local child, Odette Litalien. Hamonet appears to be about 9 to 12 years old in the sketches.
Hartland, Winifred Grace – (Great Britain). Hartland was a ‘famous artists’ model’ invented by two American men to make money from a purported weight loss secret. Advertisements featuring Hartland and her story ran extensively in British newspapers circa 1912–1928. Some of the early Hartland testimonials showed a young, curly-haired beauty in evening dress and tiara, identity unknown; this was later changed to an obvious sketch.
Higgens, Grace – (b. 1903 England, d. 1983). Higgens (née Germany) was maid to Vanessa Bell in London, and then housekeeper and cook for over fifty years at Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex. She stayed on at Charleston beyond the death of her employer Bell to take care of an ageing Duncan Grant. An inveterate diary-keeper, Higgens wrote entries about Bell and Grant, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Lydia Lopokova, John Maynard Keynes, Roger Fry and others who made up the Bloomsbury coterie at Charleston. Several paintings of her exist from this time.
Ivens, Frances – (b. 1870 England, d. 1944). Ivens was a female surgeon who led the newly formed Scottish Women’s Hospital for the French Red Cross at the Abbey of Royaumont in the First World War. The all-female units were founded by Elsie Maud Inglis, a pioneering physician who persevered after a bureaucrat at the British War Office told her, ‘My good lady, go home and sit still.’ In 1920 the war artist Norah Neilson Gray depicted Ivens inspecting a patient at Royaumont in a painting accepted into the collection of the Imperial War Museum.
John, Gwen – (b. 1876 Wales, d. 1939). John was arguably the most important female artist of early twentieth-century Britain. The perception of her as a meek recluse is flawed, although she may well have seemed that way in comparison to her hard-living brother Augustus. In reality, John was a confident woman who lived life on her own terms: a long-time muse to the sculptor Rodin and a masterful painter who produced scenes of quiet import. Her friends and neighbours figure strongly in her art.
Kelsey, Marguerite – (b. circa 1909 England, d. 1995). Kelsey was a celebrated artists’ model who was unparalleled in the 1920s and 1930s for her graceful demeanour and classic English beauty. These attributes, together with her stamina in posing, brought her decades of work as a professional model. Kelsey had a sympathetic personality and often became a friend to the artists she sat for. In Meredith Frampton’s 1928 painting, Marguerite Kelsey, the model’s couturier garçonne style is treated as a subject in its own right.
La Giuseppina – (Italy, dates unknown). See dell’Acqua, Carolina.
Lamb, Euphemia – (b. circa 1889 England, d. 1957). Lamb (née Nina Forrest) was a popular artists’ model and the wife of the artist Henry Lamb. Her husband-to-be renamed her Euphemia after meeting her at the Café Royal in London. She led a promiscuous life even by bohemian standards, and took the occultist Aleister Crowley as a lover. The slender, pale Lamb was a charismatic model who inspired works by Ambrose McEvoy, Augustus John, James Dickson Innes, Jacob Epstein and others.
Lanchester, Elsa – (b. 1902 England, d. 1986). Lanchester was born into an unconventional socialist family that sent her to Paris to study classical dance at the age of 10. In 1920 she debuted a music-hall act and shortly thereafter founded the Children’s Theatre in Soho. She made her West End stage debut in 1922; two years later she and her partner, Harold Scott, opened the Cave of Harmony nightclub and cabaret in London. Lanchester’s portrait by Doris Clare Zinkeisen celebrates her dramatic personality and trademark red hair.
Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (The Women of Avignon) – (Spain, dates unknown). Pablo Picasso created one of the twentieth century’s most controversial works of art when he painted Les Demoiselles D’Avignon in 1907. His shocking Cubist masterpiece shows five nude women staring out of the canvas – it turned the traditional dynamic of the male gaze and the female subject on its head. All five figures are drawn from anonymous workers at a brothel on Carrer d’Avinyó in Barcelona, Spain.
Lessore, Therese – (b. 1884 England, d. 1945). Lessore was born into a family of artists and carried on the tradition as a painter in oils and watercolours. The Slade-trained Lessore was associated with the Camden Town Group and in 1913 became a founding member of the London Group. Lessore married her second husband, Walter Richard Sickert, in 1926, becoming his third wife. She sat for her husband and took many of the photographs he used for reference.
Leveson-Gower, Millicent Fanny – (b. 1867 Scotland, d. 1955). ‘Meddlesome Millie’ was the Duchess of Sutherland and an important figure in British social reform. Her prominence as a society doyenne was eclipsed by her work during the First World War, when she organised an eponymous ambulance unit that saw active service in Belgium. She later directed field hospitals in northern France, and was awarded the French Croix de guerre, the Belgian Royal Red Cross and the British Red Cross medal. She posed in a gown for John Singer Sargent, energy barely held in check, resulting in one of his most famous portraits.
Lindsell-Stewart, Dorothy (Meum) – (b. circa 1894 England, d. 1957). Dorothy Lindsell-Stewart was a young typist working as an artists’ model when she succeeded in crossing over to a career in theatre and cabaret as Miss Meum Stewart. She met Jacob Epstein circa 1916 when she was estranged from her husband, and bore the sculptor a child in 1918. Epstein used both Lindsell-Stewart and the child, Peggy Jean, as models.
Londonderry, Marchioness of – See Chaplin, Edith Helen.
Lopokova, Lydia – (b. 1892 Russia, d. 1981). Lopokova was a Russian ballerina of considerable talent and fame who made her first London appearance in 1918 with the Ballets Russes. She returned to London in 1921 in The Sleeping Princess, where she met the British economist John Maynard Keynes and married him in 1925. The oft-painted Lopokova’s relationship with Keynes’s Bloomsbury Group friends was rocky at first but warmed over time.
Mackaill, Dorothy – (b. 1903 England, d. 1990). Obsessed with the theatre from a young age, Mackaill ran away to London as a teenager to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. There she found work as a chorus girl, eventually moving to Paris and then to New York to perform in the Ziegfeld Follies. Mackaill used her comedic and dramatic talents to become a stage and cinematic success in America in the 1920s and 1930s and lived there the rest of her life.
Mannequins (Lay Figures) – (Great Britain). By 1929, full-sized mannequins had been in use for centuries as a tool by artists – then the British painters Walter Richard Sickert and Alan Beeton made an unusual choice. They took mannequins from the realm of props or tools and brought them into use as models. Beeton famously posed his mannequin for Decomposing and three companion pictures; Sickert was inspired to use his eighteenth-century mannequin for the central figure in The Raising of Lazarus.
Manners, Lady Diana – See Cooper, Lady Diana.
May (Golding), Betty – (b. circa 1895 England, d. unknown). May was an outrageous flapper-era singer, dancer and artists’ model who tried to elevate herself above a destitute London childhood. Described by a family member as a savage child, she was sexually precocious and jumped headfirst into the 1920s nightlife of the Café Royal and other venues frequented by artists. There she met and posed for Jacob Epstein, Augustus John, Jacob Kramer and others, and later wrote a torrid autobiography, Tiger Woman.
Mayo, Eileen – (b. 1906 England, d. 1994). Mayo was an enormously versatile artist who produced works of fine art, commercial art, illustration, and coin and stamp design in three countries. She studied at the Slade School and several other institutions, and taught at Saint Martin’s School of Art and Sir John Cass College. For a time Mayo worked as an artists’ model for Duncan Grant, Dod and Ernest Procter and Laura and Harold Knight.
McNeill, Dorothy (Dorelia) – (b. 1881 England, d. 1969). The muse and soul mate of Augustus John, McNeill became his mistress within three years of his marrying Ida Nettleship. John became fascinated with McNeill, and for a while she moved into the artist’s household. McNeill had four children with Augustus and raised Ida’s sons after her death. Augustus John’s many paintings and drawings of McNeill comprise some of his most intimate work.
Miller, Lee (Elizabeth) – (b. 1907 United States, d. 1977). Miller was an American photographer and high fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris in search of adventure. There she became Picasso’s lover and Man Ray’s muse. While Miller is best known as a portraitist, photographer and war correspondent, Surrealism informed her most significant work. Relatively few paintings of Miller exist apart from Picasso’s portraits of her, but countless photographs document her rare beauty.
Morrell, Lady Ottoline – (b. 1873 England, d. 1938). Morrell (née Cavendish-Bentinck) was the era’s most intriguing patron of the arts, holding court at her home in London and at Garsington Manor near Oxford. Bisexual and flamboyant, Morrell was also extremely well connected – which resulted in many of the greatest artistic and literary talents of the day accepting her hospitality. Six feet tall with a piercing gaze, Morrell was one of the most prolific sitters of early twentieth-century London.
Mountbatten, Lady Louise – (b. 1889 Germany, d. 1965). Mountbatten was born a princess of the German Battenbergs – a surname that was changed to Mountbatten by her father in 1917 to reflect his allegiance to England. After declaring that she would marry for love, Mountbatten was thrice unlucky in love before marrying Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden. She became Queen of Sweden in 1950. As expected of the aristocracy, she sat for eminent portraitists such as Philip de Laszlo and Salvador Dali.
Munday, Elsie – (b. circa 1905 England, d. 1994). Munday (m. Beckford) was the maid employed by artists Hilda (Carline) and Stanley Spencer from 1929, when they were living in Burghclere, until their divorce proceedings in 1937. She was integral to the family’s life and sat for both artists numerous times. As a measure of respect, Spencer planned to provide her with her own small chapel when he built what he termed a Church-House (Chapel of Me), although the project never came to fruition.
Naper, Ella Louise – (b. 1886 England, d. 1972). London-born Naper (née Champion) catapulted into public controversy as the sitter for painter Laura Knight’s seminal Self Portrait (1913). Knight’s picture was called everything from vulgar to bravura to a taboo-smashing leap forward for modern women. Naper, who trained as an artist and jewellery designer, was a friend of both Laura and Harold Knight. She sat for them at their studios in Cornwall, and for her husband Charles William Skipwith Naper.
Nesbit, Evelyn – (b. 1884 United States, d. 1967). Nesbit was a high-profile artists’ model, chorus girl and singer, and the central figure in the New York murder trial of her husband Harry Thaw. Thaw shot and killed the architect Stanford White in a jealous rage for ‘devirgining’ Nesbit, as she put it. Nesbit’s transition from model to transcontinental superstar inspired countless young women on both sides of the Atlantic to pursue fame. Her later life was much less glamorous and she twice attempted suicide.
Nettleship, Ida – (b. 1877 England, d. 1907). Nettleship (m. John) was a Slade-trained artist and close friend of Gwen John, best known as the first wife of the artist Augustus John, his model and mother of five of his sons. She died aged 29 of puerperal fever, having weathered her husband’s infidelities and erratic lifestyle. She was a devoted caretaker of his talent, with the result that her own talent was never fully realised.
Orpen, Grace – (b. 1878 England, d. 1948). Orpen (née Knewstub) was the wife of William Orpen, who painted several notable portraits of her. They were not a happy couple despite having three daughters together, and the marriage became one of convenience. The artist’s 1901 oil, The Window Seat, although painted on their honeymoon, conveys a sense of detachment. Grace’s sister Alice was more accommodating as a sitter for her husband, the painter William Rothenstein.
Patel, Anita (Miriam) – See Peerbhoy, Sunita.
Peerbhoy, Sunita (Amina, Armina) – (b. circa 1897 India, d. 1932). Peerbhoy (née Devi) was a dark-skinned Indian immigrant who met Jacob Epstein in 1924 and began modelling for him, as did her sister Miriam Patel and son Enver. Epstein chose to call the women Sunita and Anita. Sunita became a celebrated model in Britain in the 1920s and early 1930s, transcending the prejudices of the day. Her death in India was rumoured to be an assassination for spying.
Pesce, Rosalina (Rosalinda) – (b. circa 1881 France or Italy, d. possibly 1929). Very little is known about Pesce, apart from the fact that she was a teenage Italian immigrant girl living in the Montparnasse area of Paris in 1896, not a professional model. She was involved in posing for the figure of Marianne (La Semeuse, The Sower) designed by the sculptor Oscar Roty as part of the French government’s commission for a new coin design. The figure, a symbol of the French Republic, became one of the most recognisable pieces of art in Europe.
Peters, Betty – (b. circa 1919 England, d. unknown). Peters was a strong-featured, black-skinned model who sat for Jacob Epstein and inspired a number of memorable nude studies in the 1940s. In a 1947 exhibition review she was described as living in the East End of London, 5ft 9in tall, with ‘a mass of jetblack, curly hair betokening her African descent’. Peters would later say that she became close to Epstein’s family and knew his children and grandchildren.
Pierres, Stella – (b. circa 1904 England, d. unknown). Pierres was a fledgling model and the winner of a ‘Modern Venus’ contest in 1924 to promote the London launch of The Temple of Venus, an American silent film. Pierres’s measurements most closely matched those of the Venus de Milo at the Louvre Museum, as determined by a panel of female judges under the watchful eye of Jacob Epstein. Pierres never achieved top status as a model, but the competition did raise her profile and bring her at least a decade of public appearances.
Powell, Emily – (b. circa 1897 England, d. unknown). Powell was one of the most memorable models used by the painter Walter Sickert. She was a London teenager and sometime chorus girl, the daughter of Sickert’s landlady at no. 26 Red Lion Square where he had a studio. Sickert nicknamed Powell ‘Chicken’ and identified her by name in the titles of some of his works. Chicken embodied what Sickert thought of as a type – the lower-middle-class Camden Town woman – that he found appealing as subject matter.
Preece, Patricia – (b. 1894 England, d. 1966). Preece, a painter, is something of a notorious figure in British art. A lesbian who married the artist Stanley Spencer for his money, she ruined his marriage to Hilda Carline and caused distress to his children. There has been speculation, and some substantiation, that most of Preece’s signed artworks were actually painted by Dorothy Hepworth, her closeted lover. Preece’s greatest impact may be as a model for Spencer, whose canvases capture the cracks in her façade before, during and after their relationship.
Preston, Marie – (b. circa 1885 England, d. 1962). The wife of sculptor and medallist Edward Carter Preston was a talented painter, dressmaker and costumier, and the sister of Liverpool sculptor Herbert Tyson Smith. She frequently served as a model for her husband, who posed her as the Good Housewife figure for the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool. She may also have been the model for Britain’s next-of-kin memorial plaque sent to the families of those killed in action in the First World War.
Rebecca – See Esther.
Redway, Sonia – (England, dates unknown). The odd triangle of painters that was Barbara Hepworth, Patricia Preece and Stanley Spencer all used Redway as a model. She was a native of Cookham, where the three lived, and resided there for most of her life. Redway began posing for Spencer as a girl and continued as a young woman. Little else is known about her apart from her participation in the local Maidenhead Operatic Society as late as 1970.
Rothenstein, Alice – (b. 1867 England, d. 1957). Rothenstein (née Knewstub) was the wife of English artist and writer William Rothenstein and often served as his model. She acted on the stage under the name Alice Kingsley. The couple became friends of Augustus John at the turn of the century, and one of Rothenstein’s most famous paintings, The Doll’s House, depicts a scene from the play of the same name. The artist posed his wife and John as Ibsen’s characters at Vattetot in Normandy, where they were staying at the time.
St George, Evelyn (and Gardenia) – (b. 1870 United States, d. 1936). The married Evelyn St George, an American, was an inspiration to the equally married William Orpen. They embarked on a serious love affair in 1908, which led to the birth of a daughter, Vivien, in 1912. Orpen and his mistress spent time together each year on the pretext of Orpen painting an annual portrait of another of St George’s daughters, Gardenia – a series of paintings that ranks among the artist’s most nuanced work. Orpen’s portrait of Mrs Evelyn St George, displays a similar depth of emotion.
Salaman, Chattie – (b. 1919 England, d. 2000). Salaman (née Wake) was descended from a centuries-old Anglo-Saxon family. She became a stage actress and sometime artists’ model affiliated with the Bloomsbury Group through her friendship with Angelica Bell, Vanessa Bell’s daughter. Salaman posed for the Berwick Church murals painted by Duncan Grant in 1940. Her stage performances were varied and well-received, earning critical reviews for the charm, sincerity and ‘unsophisticated impudence’ of her performances.
Schepeler, Alick (Alexandra) – (b. unknown Russia, d. circa 1950s). Schepeler was one of Augustus John’s primary models from 1906 to 1908. She was working as a newspaper typist when she became his mistress and muse, posing for works that are considered to be some of John’s finest creations. The affair ended after the death of John’s wife Ida in 1907 and the intervention of Dorelia McNeill. Schepeler may have relocated to Dublin, as there are anecdotal accounts of her in a relationship there with W.B. Yeats in 1912.
Schiff, Violet – (b. 1874 England, d. 1962).Violet Schiff, a musician, and her husband Sydney, a writer, had a decidedly modernist bent. They befriended Marcel Proust, Katharine Mansfield, T.S. Eliot and Wyndham Lewis, among others. The Schiffs collected illustrious acquaintances, and their house became a magnet for artists, musicians and writers. Lewis’s portrait of Mrs Schiff (circa 1923) is an unusually respectful treatment by the often-virulent painter.
Schmidt, Carola – (Germany, dates unknown). Schmidt was a governess and tutor employed by the artist Edna Clarke Hall and her husband to care for their two small sons. She sometimes served as a model for her employer, primarily in domestic scenes. Clarke Hall’s pencil and watercolour sketch entitled Carola playing her violin to Justin and Denis in the barn depicts Schmidt and her charges at Great Tomkins, Upminster Common, in 1914. Carola by the thatched barn (1910) shows the governess in contemplative isolation.
Schofield, Norine – See Dolores.
Shelley, Lilian – (b. 1892 England, d. 1933). Shelley’s name has become synonymous with the hybrid studio-nightclub-music hall artists’ model that was prominent in London from 1910 through the 1920s. She had a knack for frequenting the best places to see and be seen, singing her trademark songs at late-night clubs such as the Cave of the Golden Calf. The most famous sculpture of Shelley is by Jacob Epstein, who appreciated the vulnerable young woman beneath the high-spirited façade.
Siddal, Lizzie (Elizabeth) – (b. 1829 England, d. 1862). Siddal (née Siddall) was a Victorian with a medieval face that saved her from a nondescript existence. Siddal was working at a London hat shop when Walter Deverell discovered her and posed her as Viola for his painting Twelfth Night. She went on to model extensively for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, and married Dante Gabriel Rossetti. An artist and poet, Siddal continued to inspire Rossetti after her death from an overdose of laudanum.
Sitwell, Edith – (b. 1887 England, d. 1964). Sitwell was a critic and avantgarde poet born into one of Britain’s most illustrious literary families. She became known for espousing eccentric opinions and for affecting Elizabethan dress, but she was far more than a novelty. The profound emotional depth of her poetry is a testament to her talent. Painters and photographers pursued Sitwell as a model – she memorably sat for portraits by Roger Fry, Alvaro Guevara, Wyndham Lewis, Rex Whistler and others.
Stafford, Lottie – (England, dates unknown). Stafford was a Cockney washerwoman and a respected model who lived in a rundown cottage in Paradise Walk in Chelsea. William Orpen’s painting Resting (1905) conveys all the essentials about her: naturally self-assured and quietly sensual, with a graceful neck and considerable physical presence. She modelled for Orpen, William Nicholson, Walter Sickert, Augustus John and others. Little is known about her personal life.
Stanley Smith, Ellen – (b. circa 1884 England, d. unknown). Stanley Smith, an otherwise anonymous artists’ model, was a 21-year-old woman brought to court in May 1905 on the charge of having stolen ten shillings. She was released upon proving that she was employed at the Royal Academy as an artists’ model. The painter Edmund Blair Leighton appeared as a character witness for her.
Stewart-Richardson, Lady Constance – (b. 1883 England, d. 1932). Stewart-Richardson was the daughter of the 2nd Earl of Cromartie and more of a renegade than a noblewoman – she was a champion swimmer, a big game hunter and an avid performer of classical dance. When she began dancing barefoot and scantily clad in London theatres, the Court of Edward VII was aghast and the king personally banned her. A free spirit, she posed for some of the most admired works of the Russian sculptor Prince Paolo Troubetzkoy.
Susie – (England, dates unknown). Susie was a Cornish fisherman’s daughter who lived in Mousehole and appeared in several paintings and a series of drypoint etchings by Laura Knight. One of the most famous portraits of her is Susie and the Wash Basin, which Knight completed in 1929 – earning Knight the accolade of ‘most astounding’ artist of the 1929 Royal Academy exhibition.
Tree, Iris – (b. 1897 England, d. 1968). Iris Tree was the youngest and most uninhibited of the three legitimate daughters of the thespian Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Her accomplice in her escapades was her girlhood friend, the heiress and artists’ model Nancy Cunard. An unapologetic bohemian eccentric and a talented poet, Tree wore her heart on her sleeve. Her complex personality made her an intriguing model for Augustus John, Roger Fry and many others.
Tree, Viola – (b. 1884 England, d. 1938). Viola Tree was the multi-talented, eldest daughter of the thespians Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Helen Maud Tree. She is best known as an author and actress who had a successful stage career. Tree also sang opera, managed a theatre, appeared in films and wrote two plays, as well as an etiquette book and a biography. While her sister Iris was a much more prolific artists’ model, Viola did pose from time to time, and was the subject of a portrait by John Singer Sargent.
Villain, Augustine – (France, dates unknown). When the artist Walter Richard Sickert relocated to Dieppe, France, at the end of the nineteenth century, it wasn’t long before he moved in with Villain and her children. Villain was a native of the Dieppe fishing community and ran a fish stall. Sickert carried on a dual social life in Dieppe, living with Villain on the working side of the harbour but spending many evenings as a gentleman in the glittery casinos. The fiery, red-haired Villain, known locally as La Belle Rousse for her dramatic beauty, often sat for Sickert in her triple role of landlady, muse and mistress.
Watson, Carmen – (b. circa 1913 France, d. 2003). The ethereal, blonde cousin of the Avico family of models, Watson had success as an artists’ model and continued to pose well into her later years. She became a fixture at the Chelsea Arts Balls and was the favourite model of the artist Ethel Gabain, for whom she sat many times in the guise of a young bride. By the time Watson became a real-life bride in 1940, she had posed over sixty times for Gabain.
Woman – (England). The term used by most London art schools on model pay receipts and related records until the twentieth century, in part to shield female life class models from insinuation by keeping them anonymous.
Woolf, Virginia – (b. 1882 England, d. 1941). Woolf (née Stephen) stands as a towering influence on modernist twentieth century culture despite a lifelong battle with depression that affected her ability to write. She was the first to craft narration in the form of stream of consciousness in landmark works such as To The Lighthouse. With her sister Vanessa Bell, she was instrumental in coalescing the Bloomsbury Group, first in London and later in Sussex. Woolf was painted many times by the artists in her sphere.
Zinkeisen, Doris – (b. 1898 Scotland, d. 1991). Zinkeisen is best known as a theatrical designer (both stage and costume), a commercial artist and a writer. She also cultivated a successful career as a society portraitist and as a painter of genteel pursuits. Her legacy of work includes a number of highly stylised selfportraits.