Painted Dreams:The Pre-Raphaelite Art of Evelyn De Morgan

Back in 1907, Wolverhampton Art Gallery held a retrospective of work by Pre-Raphaelite artist, Evelyn De Morgan. The exhibition showcased some of her most impressive paintings and was a milestone in both De Morgan's career and for female artists in general as it was the first time a modern gallery had ever dedicated a solo exhibition to a woman. It was very well-received, with one visitor describing De Morgan's work as "Painted Dreams". In a major show which opened in October, Wolverhampton Art Gallery has recreated the magic of the original 1907 exhibition with over 30 of De Morgan's paintings and drawings.

Evelyn De Morgan

Wolverhampton's the nearest city to home, at just 7 miles away (as opposed to Birmingham, which is two miles further). I caught the 529 bus from Walsall bus station and met up with my friend Lynn outside the Grand Theatre. After a restorative pot of tea in the gallery's cafe & a chat with a lovely lady who was part of a group studying conversational Italian on the table next to us, we posed for a classy toilet selfie before exploring the exhibition.

 Mary Evelyn Pickering was born in 1855 in London to upper-class parents, her mother's brother was the painter John Roddham Spencer Stanhope. One of four children, Evelyn was educated at home. She wrote original poetry from an early age which explored some of the themes which would later dominate her paintings. Despite some parental resistance, Evelyn was determined to be a professional artist and began training at the National Art Training School before enrolling at the newly formed Slade School of Art. It was at this time she began using her unisex middle name, Evelyn, rather than Mary, so that her work would be judged on merit alongside her male peers, rather than as art by a woman, an insight into the prejudices of the time; being an artist was widely considered a male occupation and unsuitable for a woman.  Evelyn excelled at the Slade, winning a full scholarship for her studies and many prizes for her artwork. She was particularly celebrated for her life drawing and compositions. Evelyn was inspired by Italian Renaissance paintings, the work of Botticelli in particular. She travelled to Italy to copy paintings in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. 

A example of the prejudice women arts of the day faced. (Some female artists do achieve) a partial success - they win the minor scholarships, and then lose themselves into the Nirvana of artistic mediocrity. The generally accepted principle that imaginative creation is out of the range of feminine capacity is nowhere more apparent than in art, and the sooner the truth of this is recognised by the sex, the better it will be for those who, thirsting for fame and fortune, adopt the light and ladylike profession of art. Grrrr!

Evelyn's palette

The Cadence of Autumn 

The Poor Man Who Saved the City

Cassandra, 1898

Note the wooden horse in the background

Helen of Troy, 1898

The Storm Spirits (1900) which represented thunder, lightning and rain as beautiful women. 

In 1883, at a fancy dress party whilst dressed as a tube of paint, Evelyn met celebrated Arts and Crafts ceramicist, William De Morgan and despite the 16 year age gap, the couple fell in love and married in 1887. Evelyn's personal wealth enabled her to buy their home six months before their wedding and for the first half of their marriage she was able to use the profits from the sales of her paintings to support her husband's pottery business. The couple spent their lives together in London, visiting Florence for half the year every year from 1895 until the outbreak of WWI. Both Evelyn & William supported the suffrage movement, and Evelyn's name appears as a signatory on the Declaration in Favour of Women's Suffrage of 1889. 

Night & Sleep

The Little Sea Maid

The Grey Sisters

Love's Passing

Luna

One of De Morgan's most celebrated works, the life-size painting of Flora, the Roman goddess of Spring.

Flora, 1894

  Check out the details....

No mistaking Botticelli's influence 

Boreas and Orithyia

Earthbound

Blindness and Cupidity Chasing Joy

Evelyn De Morgan died in May 1919, two years after the death of William and was buried in Woking. Their tombstone bears the inscription “Sorrow is only of the flesh / The life of the spirit is joy”.

Port After Stormy Seas, 1905

De Morgan studied her subject in meticulous detail before committing anything to paint, rarely needing to correct her work.

The Love Potion

Is that an ancestor of our little William?

The Hour Glass which used an elderly Jane Morris (the Arts and Crafts embroiderer married to William) as the model.

Study for The Hour Glass

Painted Dreams is free and runs until 9th March, 2025  

Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Lichfield St, Wolverhampton WV1 1DU

We both loved it so much that we're definitely going back! 

Much has been made of Wolverhampton, the capital of the Black Country's sad decline. The grand architecture points to the city's once rather grand past.

It's a great place for gigs and back in my youth it was a lot cooler & edgier than Birmingham for nights out. Despite the dereliction you can't fault the friendliness of the locals, us Midlanders are famed for it. Lynn and I were pleasantly surprised by the stock and the prices in the charity shops and lunch was superb.

On Lynn's recommendation we feasted on dosas, rice flour pancakes stuffed with spiced vegetables and served with sambar and chutney. As authentic as any I've eaten on my travels around South India.

 

Cafe Rosa, 37 Lichfield St, Wolverhampton WV1 1EQ

A bus selfie on the way home! I made my bolero and matching choker over the weekend using scraps of the Golden Lily fabric I had left over from my maxi waistcoat.

I'm off to another Midlands city tomorrow, Birmingham! Stay tuned for what Nikki and I got up to. 

PS I've just realised this is my 2000th blog post!