Gwen John (Paperback)

by Sue Roe (Author) "The lanes surrounding Haverfordwest are leafy and high-banked, lit in spring and summer with the starry points of wild flowers..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Terre Neuve, Edgar Quinet (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Her brother Augustus is better known today, but in the early decades of the 20th century Gwen John (1876-1939) was equally, if not more, respected as a painter (and not just as model and muse to her lover Rodin). Particularly in Paris, where she made her home, and in New York, where she was represented by pioneering art dealer John Quinn, she was acclaimed for the sureness of her technique and the haunting psychological penetration with which she captured the inner lives of her subjects. Drawing on her letters and journals, novelist and poet Sue Roe is able to chronicle the evolution of John's artistic, emotional, and spiritual strivings in fascinating detail. Rodin encouraged her work, but Roe perceptively notes that John's passionate desire to submit to the sculptor warred with her "profound sense of independence [and] need to access and control her own muse." She was sustained by a series of intimate friendships with other women (including her brother's wife and mistress), as well as a burgeoning Catholic faith. Far from being the eccentric recluse of posthumous legend, John exhibited and sold her work regularly and had an active social life. The stillness and harmony of her work, Roe convincingly argues, were the product of enormous self-discipline and restraint imposed on a turbulent psyche. This sensitive, sympathetic biography arouses our admiration and awe for a woman who "lived uniquely, with dedication and daring." --Wendy Smith --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
British novelist, poet and critic Roe (Estella) offers a biography of the painter John (1876-1939), who focused on Whistler-like portraits and spent some time as mistress to the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Once undervalued because of the celebrity of her now-neglected painter brother Augustus John (1878-1961), Gwen John is an utterly British subject in her lifelong shyness and reticence, yet offers a welcome alternative for Brit-o-phile readers weary of the Bloomsbury circle (Roe's Writing and Gender: Virginia Woolf's Writing Practice among the plethora of titles). This new book tells more than most readers will want to know about degrees of feeling in John's relationship with Rodin and her emotions when she loses her cat, Quinet. Despite the book's subtitle, there is mostly vague and generalized analysis of the paintings themselves: "...her work gained a strong, fluid sense of immediacy and an intimacy between artist and subject," is a typical assay. The many women Johns painted reveal some interesting psychological states, including bleary depression, sexual repression and clear excitement sometimes all in the same image. But Roe gets too caught up in landlords' bills and the like, and fails to focus clearly on John's highest achievements (shown in 16 pages of b&w and color images). As a modern woman artist, Johns had a life about one-tenth as interesting as that of contemporaries like Mina Loy, but this recognition of her contribution should at least restore her to the era's artistic ferment.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (May 2, 2002)
• ISBN-10: 009926756X
• ISBN-13: 978-0099267560
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #597,682 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Painter of Interiors, May 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Gwen John: A Painter's Life (Hardcover)

Gwen John (1876-1939),the Welsh painter,is the sister of the more reknown Augustus John but with a style of art distinctly her own. Gwen John is a painter of interiors and reticience, who allows the subject's state of being, both physical and spiritual, to dominate the canvas. As her teacher Whistler knew and praised John's use of use of colour and especially tone became her trademark.
Ms. Roe has done an admirable job of combining the hidden life of this artist and the world of art in Paris from 1900-1939 in which she moved freely and with great competence. Ms. Roe has gone a long way in shattering the "Gwen John myth" of solitude and isolation and demonstrates that Ms. John continued to have and make friends and maintain her family ties until her death in 1939.
Ms. Roe writes of John's early days in Paris a a model and lover of Rodin. Her later associations with Rilke,the American collector and her patron John Quinn and his companion poet Jeanne Robert Foster,as she lived in Paris during the heady days of the great new developments in modern art. In the 1930s John retired to a Parisian suburb with her cats and her wild garden but continued her work. Even in her 50s she considered herself a student and studied under Lhote. She was reknown for her perfectionism and her inability to meet arbitrary deadlines. John's own sense of what a painting should be, did not always meet the expectations of dealers and exhibitors. Her work was not commercial it was personal some have called it spiritual.
Gwen John is far less known than her contemporaries Chagall, Picasso, Roualt yet she knew she had a place in art and so pursued her vision fearlessly. She had little reknown in her own lifetime but time has proven her vision and her reputation in art is now secure.
I once met the art critic Sister Wendy Beckett at the Tate Museum, and she asked me whose works I had come to see. I told her Gwen John and Sister Wendy replied "Don't you just love her?." Gwen John,unique,ruthless,gentle,complex,gifted,restless and Celtic,Sue Roe shows us why those who admire Gwen John "just love her" and invites those who do not know her to do so.