Sacha Llewellyn – författare

Though largely forgotten today, Gladys Hynes (1888–1958) was a pioneering artist whose life and work reflect the radical, turbulent and often contradictory currents of the first half of the twentieth centuryBorn in India to Irish and English ancestry, Gladys Hynes was not only a gifted painter, sculptor, illustrator and designer but also a radical—pacifist, feminist, suffragist and Irish Republican. Over five decades, she produced an exceptional body of work that engaged with the key movements of her time, ranging from the Newlyn School and Omega Workshops to Vorticism and Surrealism.Hynes moved in an extraordinary circle of creative, intellectual and political figures. Among her closest friends were fellow artists and writers Mary Butts, Nina Hammett, Laura Knight, Gluck and Dod Procter; in Irish politics, Desmond and Mabel FitzGerald and Capt. Jack White. Her greatest and most influential friendship was with the controversial and avant-garde poet Ezra Pound, whose Cantos she illustrated. These intellectual and artistic exchanges significantly shaped Hynes’s life and development as an artist.Hynes’s legacy has been almost entirely overlooked. By shedding light on her artistic achievements, activism and feminist vision, this biography seeks to restore Hynes to her rightful place within the modernist canon as a remarkable woman whose influence, long neglected, is now ripe for rediscovery.

Winifred Knights (1899-1947) is one of the outstanding, but until recently neglected, British women painters of the first half of the 20th century. Copiously illustrated in colour throughout, this book provides the first full account of her life and work, examining Knights’ art in the context of interwar Modernism and assessing her contribution to the revival in this period of both Decorative Painting and religious imagery.Author Sacha Llewellyn traces the artist’s career from her years at the Slade School of Art and her First World War evacuation to rural Worcestershire through to the time she spent at the British School at Rome in the early 1920s and the many commissions she completed between 1926 and 1939. Presenting the artist as the central protagonist, and with models selected from her inner circle, Knights’ paintings were deeply autobiographical. She consistently re-wrote fairy-tale and legend, Biblical narrative and Pagan mythology to explore women’s relationship to war, the natural world, working communities, marriage, motherhood and death. Drawing on previously unpublished documentary material, including letters, diaries, sketchbooks and photographs, Sacha Llewellyn makes a strong case for recognising Knights as one of the most talented artists of her generation. The book reproduces all of Knights’ major works, including her masterpiece, The Deluge, which is among the most remarked upon works at Tate Britain, having been on almost permanent display there since 1995.

British realist art of the 1920s and 1930s is visually stunning - strong, seductive and demonstrating extraordinary technical skill. Despite this, it is often overshadowed by abstract art. This book presents the very first overview of British realist painting of the period, showcasing outstanding works from private and public collections across the UK. Of the forty artists featured in the show, many were major figures in the 1920s and 1930s but later passed out of fashion as abstraction and Pop Art became the dominant trends in the post-war years. In the last decade their work has re-emerged and interest in them has grown. Interwar realist art embraces a number of different styles, but is characterised by fine drawing, meticulous craftsmanship, a tendency towards classicism and an aversion to impressionism and visible brushwork. Artists such as Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, Meredith Frampton, James Cowie and Winifred Knights combine fastidious Old Master detail with 1920s modernity. Stanley Spencer spans various camps while Lucian Freud's early work can be seen as a realist coda which continued into the 1940s and beyond. Featuring many Scottish and women artists, this book promises a fascinating insight into this captivating period of British art.

Phyllis Dodd was born in Chester and studied firstly at Liverpool School of Art 1917-21 After winning a Royal Exhibition scholarship spent a further four years at the RCA in the company of her life-long friends Henry Moore, Raymond Coxon and Edna Ginesi. After gaining her diploma and winning the Drawing Prize in her final year she went on to teach part-time at Walthamstow Technical College 1925-30. Dodd exhibited at the RA, NEAC, RP, RSA and at the Walker Art Gallery. Her ninetieth birthday was celebrated with a major retrospective exhibition held at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University in November 1989. Married to the artist Douglas Percy Bliss, she held a joint exhibition with him at Derby Art Gallery, 1947. In the year of her death, a retrospective exhibition of her work was held at Newport Art Gallery who also have a fine portrait example in their collection as do Hull University. Douglas Percy Bliss was a Scottish painter and art conservationist. Born in Karachi, India (now in Pakistan), Bliss was raised in Edinburgh and educated at George Watson’s College from 1906 to 1917. Bliss left school in 1917 to join the Highland Light Infantry until the end of WW1. In 1922 he was awarded an M.A. in English Literature by the University of Edinburgh. He had studied Art History in his first year. Bliss then studied painting at the Royal College of Art in London. In his post-graduate year he studied engraving. In 1925 the Oxford University Press published his engravings illustrating Border ballads. Bliss then received a number of commissions, including a commission to write A History of Wood Engraving. This work received such critical acclaim that Bliss’ reputation as an artist was overshadowed by his reputation as a critic and teacher. In the 1930s he taught at the Blackheath School of Art and was the London art critic for The Scotsman. In 1941 Bliss joined the RAF and was stationed in Scotland. After the war he was appointed Director of the Glasgow School of Art. An exhibition of his work was held in the Glasgow School of Art in the summer of 1998.