Dame Ethel Walker
Scottish, 1861-1951

Portrait of Bapsy Pavry, 1937
oil on canvas

SBMA, Gift of Mary and Will Richeson Jr.
1973.88.3

RESEARCH PAPER

Realism and Impression in the Work of Dame Ethel Walker

Dame Ethel Walker was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1861. Inspired to become an artist after seeing a collection of oriental art, she studied in London at the Putney Art School for two years (c. 1883) and at the Westminster School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art (1892–4) under Frederick Brown.

In 1884, on a visit to Spain she was greatly impressed by Velázquez's blend of realism and myth, and in Paris she was equally inspired by Manet and by the Impressionists. It is this combination of realism and impressionism that defines her work.

In 1898 she settled in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London, and established a studio that she maintained for the rest of her life. She began exhibiting at the age of 37 with her first major success coming with the portrait of Angela. Angela was a study of a girl exhibited at the New English Art Club (NEAC) where she was elected the first woman member. Walker was also associated with a group of primarily single women, all trained at the Slade, exhibited at the NEAC, and lived in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. The group was known as the Cheyne Walkers. Other members included Beatrice Bland, Fairlie Harmar, Louise Pickard and Josephine Mason.

From 1900-1940s, Walker exhibited her portraits, seascapes, still lifes, flower paintings and nudes regularly at the Royal Academy, the NEAC, and the Women’s International Art Club, being elected honorary president in1932. She took the unusual step of returning to art school in the 1910s and the 1920s to develop her technique of drawing and painting from a model. It was during this time that her style progressed from being heavily influenced by Manet to a looser and more expressive style that we see in the Portrait of Bapsy Pavry.

The Tate held a retrospective exhibition of her work (together with that of Gwen John and Frances Hodgkins) in 1951. Her work is held in numerous collections including the Royal Collection, the Courtauld Institute of Art, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and at York City Art Gallery and Leeds City Art Gallery.

Of her works, particularly successful are her portraits of women, such as Portrait of Bapsy Pavry, (1937; Santa Barbara, SBMA), which often had a dominant key of brilliant color. The dominant color here is the red used in the shawl. This portrait has real presence and a feeling of spontaneity due to the heavy impasto and broken brushwork. The composition is classic and the style akin to the English Impressionists via the Bloomsbury Group. It is not clear whether this was a commission or if Ms. Pavry was an acquaintance of Walker. Ms. Pavry was born in 1900, the sister of the Zoroastrian High Priest. She married Lord Winchester, the premier Marquess of England in order to attend the Coronation of George VI.

Walker was celebrated as Britain’s leading woman Impressionist painter in the inter-war years, receiving recognition for her achievement only very late in life. According to the biography in the Dictionary of English Painters there were ‘many first-hand accounts of her eccentric character and lifestyle, her pithy wit, usually at a man’s expense, her confidence in her own reputation and abilities combined with ‘furious energy.’’ John Rothenstein wrote ‘when we consider her character, her freedom from ordinary conventions, her fanatical independence, her habit of uttering her uncensored thoughts and her domineering ways, it is perhaps odd that she led so tranquil a life.’

Submitted to the Docent Council by Karri Simons, 2003


Sources
www.tate.org.uk
www.Artnet.org
www.National Portrait Gallery.org
Dictionary of English Artists – Ethel Walker
Ethel Walker, Frances Hodgkins, Gwen John: A Memorial Exhibition (exh. cat., foreword by J. Rothenstein and Philip James; London, Tate, 1952)
Distinguished British Paintings, 1875–1950: An Accent on Ethel Walker (exh. cat., London, Roland, Browse & Delbanco, 1974)
Dame Ethel Walker (exh. cat., London, Blond F.A., 1979)