recently had a wonderful day out in Cardiff to see Gwen John: Strange Beauties at the National Museum Cardiff. It was a great exhibition of an artist I did not know enough about… I have some reservations about the information with the art, not due to inaccuracy but I guess a general absence of some context perhaps. I do have to add that is speculation on my part. but the range of work on show and how it was hung were really great.
My main observation was the way that GJ worked really lent itself to sequential/comic work. I thought these examples at the very ‘end’ of the exhibition showed the potential and that if Zines existed at the time, they might have been something that the artist would have engaged in?
Gwen John was a painter and so much more who straddled an incredible time of change in the world and art world in general. Gwendolen “Gwen” Mary John (22 June 1876 – 18 September 1939) was born in Haverfordwest, studied art at the Slade school in London where her brother Augustus was also a student. She became a model for other artists in Paris to support herself and had a relationship with Auguste Rodin. The fall out from this seems to be the reason she ended up living in Meudon a suburb of Paris and becoming devoutly Catholic for the rest of her life.
She continued to paint into the 1930s but seems to have had little interest in looking after herself and after losing the income from her only patron went into decline. There is no evidence of art being made for last six years of her life and she dies apparently if starvation in Dieppe fleeing the German invasion of France in 1939. But what amazing painting of people… she would have made great comics!
richard starzecki 