Born: 2 April 1850, Ireland
Died: 1937
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Ellen Douglas
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Rebecca Minch. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Duncan, Ellen (1850–1937), arts administrator and journalist, was born in Dublin, eldest daughter of Thomas Douglas of Sydney Parade, Ballsbridge. She was educated at Alexandra College, Dublin and at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Married to James Duncan, a civil servant in Dublin Castle, she was known by her husband’s surname throughout her public career. In the early 1900s she emerged as a central figure in the promotion of modern art in Ireland. She was involved in the earliest stages of the setting up of a municipal gallery of modern art for Dublin; in 1905 she organised the purchase of a painting by the English artist Philip Wilson Steer (1860–1942) for the gallery, which was then housed at Clonmell House, Harcourt Street. It was against this background of support for the arts in Dublin that the United Arts Club was formed in 1909. Duncan chaired the committee that proposed its formation, and became honorary secretary in 1910.
In January 1910 she proposed that the United Arts Club hold an exhibition of modern French painting. From November 1910 to January 1911 an exhibition entitled ‘Manet and the post-impressionists’, organised by the artist and critic Roger Fry (a leading figure in creating public awareness of modern art in Britain), was held at the Grafton Galleries, London. Duncan arranged for a selection of over forty of these paintings to be sent to Dublin, where they were exhibited under the title ‘Post-impressionist painters’. The exhibition included works by Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. This was the first time such avant-garde art had been displayed in Ireland. It provoked considerable criticism: George Russell (‘AE’) condemned the majority of the works as ‘barbarous’ and ‘decrepit’. Duncan responded to Russell’s criticism by drawing an analogy between this art, with its abstract tendencies, and music; she wrote: ‘Why not accept their chords of pure colour with their direct appeal to the imagination as a fresh manifestation of the creative energy of the artist’ (Ir. Times, 15 February 1911). She arranged a second exhibition of forty-eight paintings in March 1912, entitled ‘Modern French pictures’. With works by Picasso and Juan Gris, this was the first time that the hugely influential style of cubism was seen in Ireland. In keeping with a commitment she maintained through her career to inform a wider public on modern trends in art, Duncan organised a series of lectures alongside this exhibition. It was another decade before a comparable exhibition would be mounted in Ireland.
During this time her home at 16 Ely Place was a focal point for the Dublin literary and artistic circle. On 3 July 1914 she resigned as honorary secretary of the United Arts Club and in October of that year was appointed curator of the Municipal Gallery by Sir Hugh Lane. In her new position Duncan became closely involved in Lane’s project to establish the gallery on a permanent footing. The intention was that, should Dublin corporation agree to build a new gallery on a site approved by Lane, his bequest of modern paintings would be given in its entirety to form one of the best municipal collections of that period. Due to delays and disagreements Lane removed a number of these works to the National Gallery, London, and aimed to bequeath them to that institution. Duncan was one of the last people to speak with Lane prior to his departure from Liverpool on the Lusitania en route for the US. In an affadavit, sworn on 12 February 1917, she testified that Lane had made clear to her his wish to return his paintings to Dublin and that he would no longer insist on having control of the choice of a new gallery. Her testimony became an important point of reference in the ensuing campaign to have the unwitnessed codicil to Lane’s will (whereby the paintings were bequeathed to the Municipal Gallery, Dublin) recognised. Duncan’s husband James had found the codicil in Lane’s desk at the NGI, having been asked to look there by Lane’s sister, Ruth Shine.
As curator of the Municipal Gallery, she set up the Hugh Lane Memorial to facilitate the donation of contemporary art works to the collection. Through it, works by Nathaniel Hone, Sir John Lavery, William Leech, and Jack B. Yeats entered the collection. She devoted considerable energy to the expansion of the collection, with the chief aim that it must reflect the most modern trends. As a result she refused a number of gifts and loans of old masters. She also maintained contact with artists, curators, and art dealers throughout Europe and America. The acquisition of works however, depended on the approval of the town clerk’s office of the corporation, and so ultimately Duncan could only act in an advisory capacity. She continued in her educational efforts, and the lecture series she organised at the gallery were well received.
She maintained a close association with Augusta, Lady Gregory, whom she assisted in the writing of the memoir Hugh Lane, his life and legacy (1921). In her journals Lady Gregory referred many times to Duncan’s unflagging efforts in the campaign to have Lane’s pictures returned to Dublin. In June 1916 she travelled to London to make representations to the government and to look for support from a number of public figures. She also continued to press Dublin corporation to progress with plans to build a gallery, favouring a site in Merrion Square. Till her resignation from the curatorship (January 1922) she faced a constant struggle to achieve a suitable salary and adequate funding for the running of the gallery. However, the reason for her resignation went unrecorded.
In 1922 her husband was discharged from his post as head of the teachers’ pensions office at Dublin Castle. The couple left Ireland, going first to London, where they lived in Chelsea before settling for a time in Paris, where their circle included Picasso, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett. In the later 1920s they lived in the south of France. By this time she was suffering from severe arthritis, which confined her to a wheelchair in the early 1930s. Though in poor health, she returned alone to Dublin in September 1931. Her suggestion to the United Arts Club that she might arrange another exhibition of contemporary art in 1932 came to nothing. In 1936, then quite incapacitated, she was forced to leave Dublin to live at Hastings with Brian Lunn, the ex-husband of her daughter. Soon afterwards her husband, who had remained in France, brought her to Paris, though the couple lived separately there. Duncan died in Paris in 1937. She had two children with James Duncan, Beatrix (b. 1893), and Alan (b. 1895). Her portrait, by Casimir Markiewicz, is in the collection of the United Arts Club, Dublin.