Gwen John Book

Born in 1876, Gwen John is one of the "modern Victorians", a woman Whose life continues to challenge her biographers. "The real mystery of Gwen John's life," as Sue Roe points out at the beginning of Gwen John, "may turn out to have less to do with her own elusiveness than with the problem of why we find it so difficult to imagine the life-style and frame of mind of a woman artist living alone." Drawing on a wide range of unpublished letters, diaries and notebooks, Roe attempts to describe both: the lifestyle--bohemian, roaming, daring--and the frame of mind--at once rebellious and fragile--of one of the most important artists of the 20th century. As if in imitation of that life, Gwen John proceeds at (sometimes breathless) speed. Roe is close to her subject, and she helps her readers to get closer. Through numerous well-chosen quotations, John's voice is heard throughout the book. Speaking of her celebrated relationship with Rodin, for example (in which eroticism gives rise to a desire for conformity: "She just wanted to be his wife"), or of her powerful identification between life and work ("Your life can still be a work of art"). Over and over again, John painted women in rooms: a theme which is reflected through Roe's tracking of John from Paris to London to Meudon--a series of lodgings and rooms in which John carves out a space in which she can live and paint. It's a fascinating, if sometimes disjointed, story in which Gwen John remains a figure with interiors--mapped onto the remarkable body of work that Roe opens up for a new audience. --Vicky LebeauRead More