This biography is republished in full with kind permission from The Art Story – Evelyn De Morgan.
Born: 30 August 1855, United Kingdom
Died: 2 May 1919
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Mary Evelyn Pickering
Evelyn De Morgan used her oil paintings to engage with the political, social and moral issues of 19th century England including prison reform and suffrage. These themes are reflected and expressed in her work, alongside her spiritualist beliefs, through the widespread use of allegory, and symbolism drawn from classical mythology. Initially working as part of the Aesthetic Movement, De Morgan adopted their stylistic elements, but rejected the movement’s mantra of “art for art’s sake” and instead focused on introducing narrative into her depictions. She later moved away from Aestheticism, taking inspiration from Italian artists such as Botticelli, and becoming one of only a small number of women artists directly associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Commercially and financially successful, De Morgan’s solo shows and financial stability were very unusual for female artists at the time and she paved the way for greater acceptance of woman painters. After her death, much of her work was bought or retained by her sister and was not placed on public display. Consequently, despite the high quality of her work and her impact on the later Pre-Raphealite Movement, De Morgan sank into relative obscurity.
Childhood
Evelyn De Morgan was born as Mary Evelyn Pickering, into a family that, as curator Margaretta Frederick describes, “straddled the upper middle class and aristocracy”. Her father, Percival Pickering, was a barrister and Queen’s Counsel, who came from a long line of politicians and Yorkshire landowners. Her mother, Anna Maria Spencer Stanhope, was the sister of The Pre-Raphaelite artist, John Roddam Spencer Stanhope. The family lived on Grosvenor Street, a fashionable address in London.
Young Evelyn was tutored at home in a wide range of subjects including classical and European languages, literature, history, and science. Such an extensive educational program was not common for women at the time, but, as, according to her younger sister and biographer, Anna Wilhemina Stirling, their mother wanted her daughters to “profi[t] from the same instruction as [their brothers]”, Spencer and Rowland. The four children also received extensive religious education from priests who came to the house regularly.
Education and Early Training
At the age of fifteen, De Morgan began formal drawing lessons and records show that her father paid three arts tutors. One of these tutors, employed to teach her to draw plants and insects, resigned suddenly when she presented him with a male nude she had drawn from a wooden model. Her commitment to her craft is evidenced by entries from her diary, in which she recorded that she committed herself to countless hours (up to ten per day) of “steady work”, and was wracked with guilt whenever she wasted time on other activities like going to tea.
Very quickly, Evelyn found her true passions to lie in drawing, painting, and poetry. Her mother, however, was opposed to her pursuing a career in the arts, stating that she wanted a “daughter, not an artist”. She even admitted attempting to bribe the drawing tutor to tell Evelyn that she was no good, so that she would give up on what she referred to as her daughter’s “passing mania”. Evelyn’s maternal aunts had also demonstrated a talent for art when they were young, but they all gave up painting when they married. When her mother suggested presenting her to society, Evelyn responded, “I’ll go to the Drawing Room if you like […] but if I go, I’ll kick the Queen!”. When her mother persisted, she exclaimed “No one shall drag me out with a halter round my neck to sell me!”
Indeed, from a young age, Evelyn exhibited a rebellious and independent spirit. He sister once wrote that she found her to be “brilliant, restless and withal frightening” adding, “I could not have framed any exact reasons for the impression, but I felt dimly that at times she disturbed the Victorian placidity of our home like a flash from an alien world”. Evelyn hid art supplies in her room and would stuff rags under the door while working to prevent the smell of paint and turpentine from reaching her parents.
When she was seventeen, De Morgan enrolled at the South Kensington National Art Training School (now the Royal College of Art), though she only stayed for a few months as she felt stifled by the school’s insistence that women should focus their energies on artisanship, rather than the ‘high art’ of painting. The following year, she became one of the first three women to enter the newly established Slade School of Art in London (alongside Mary Watts, who became a noted Symbolist craftswoman and social reformer). She went on to be awarded the prestigious Slade Scholarship (£50 per annum), as well as prizes for painting, drawing, and composition.
One of De Morgan’s most influential teachers at Slade was Sir Edward Poynter, who painted in the Aesthetic style. Artists of the Aesthetic Movement (which was closely linked to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) championed “art for art’s sake” and the pursuit of creative self-expression, unhindered by concerns of moral restrictions and conformity.
Alongside her academic studies, De Morgan also received tutelage from George Frederic Watts, a family friend and major Symbolist painter and sculptor, at his home studio, Little Holland House. Her uncle, the painter John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, had also been a student of Watts, and of Pre-Raphaelite painter and designer Edward Burne-Jones (who called him “the finest colorist in Europe”). Roddam Spencer Stanhope also taught his niece, with his Pre-Raphaelite style and love of rich, saturated colors strongly influencing her. He introduced her to his contemporaries, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, as well as writer Vernon Lee. Roddam Spencer Stanhope resided in Florence, and Evelyn’s father permitted her to visit him often, starting in 1875. While there, she deepened her love for Early and High Renaissance artists, especially Botticelli.
De Morgan first exhibited in 1876, presenting her painting St. Catherine of Alexandria (1875) at the Dudley Garden. The work was purchased by Lord Henry Somerset, a Conservative MP. She exhibited again in 1877 at the inaugural Grosvenor Gallery exhibition in London, a venue for avant-garde art. She was one of only two women included in the show. The work she presented was Ariadne at Naxos (1877), which was executed in the popular Aesthetic style, as she saw this as the best way to ensure that her work was commercially viable. This painting also sold quickly, to the Rt. Hon. John Mundella, a Liberal MP.
By this point, however, De Morgan was also developing her own unique style, as her experiences in Italy led her to move away from Aestheticism. Moreover, she was demonstrating a strong sense of independence and rebellion against the gender and class stereotypes of the time. For instance, when attending Slade, she was always taken to and from the school by a coach and chaperone, however she insisted on being dropped off a block away and walking the remaining distance herself, carrying her own supplies. Furthermore, attending the Slade School meant that De Morgan was given the unique opportunity to draw from draped and nude models, alongside her male peers. This was unheard of at the time and represented a significant move forward in terms of gender equality in the arts academies.
Mature Period
Throughout the late-1870s and 1880s, De Morgan showed her paintings at a range of galleries including the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the Royal Manchester Institution, the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour, the Institute of Painters in Oil Colours, and the Fine Arts Society.
In August of 1883, Evelyn met William De Morgan, a ceramicist, and they fell deeply in love. They married on March 5, 1887, and spent the remainder of their lives together based in London, but spending six months each year in Florence from 1895 until WWI broke out in 1914. The loving relationship between the couple is evidenced by the fact that Evelyn produced several works on the subject of love in the years following their meeting, starting with Love’s Passing (1883-84).
The couple were also politically active, Curator Margaretta Frederick notes that, “In addition to art, they were particularly committed to three causes – Victorian spiritualism, the early efforts of the women’s suffragist movement, and pacifism in response to the overwhelming devastation of the First World War”. Evelyn was a signatory on the 1889 Declaration in Favour of Women’s Suffrage.
For several decades, De Morgan supported her husband’s pottery career with the sale of her works. Finally, in 1906, William found success with the publication of his first novel, Joseph Vance (which Evelyn had sent to the publisher without him knowing), and the couple enjoyed financial security going forward. De Morgan’s sister also credited the couple as being the anonymous authors of The Result of an Experiment (1909), a book of automatic writings. The couple were spiritualists who practiced automatic writing (as a way to communicate with the spirit world) together every night for years. In fact, William’s mother, Sophia, was a practicing spiritual medium, who encouraged Evelyn to further explore spiritualism in her life and her art.
Late Period and Death
Even after William had found his own success, Evelyn continued to achieve on her own. She showed regularly at the Grosvenor Gallery and had loyal patrons, most notably William Imrie, a Scottish shipping tycoon and owner of the White Star Line (creator of the Titanic) who bought eight of her paintings. De Morgan was also given solo exhibitions in 1906 in London and in 1907 at the Wolverhampton Municipal Art Gallery and Museum, at which she presented twenty-five works.
Around 1909, perhaps due to the fact that it was no longer a financial necessity, De Morgan stopped exhibiting regularly. She continued to paint, however, and many of her works from 1899 onward expressed her horror regarding war, particularly the Second Boer War (1899-1902) and WWI (1914-18). Her aversion to modern art was made clear in a statement she made after seeing a 1910 exhibition of Post-Impressionist works, “If that is what people like now, I shall wait till the turn of the tide.” In 1916, she hosted a benefit exhibition at her studio in Edith Grove, in support of the British Red Cross and the Italian Croce Rossa.
Evelyn De Morgan passed away due to heart failure on May 2 1919, two years after her husband. She was buried alongside him in Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking, Surrey. The inscription on their tombstone was taken from The Result of an Experiment and reads “Sorrow is only of the flesh / The life of the spirit is joy”. After her passing, her remaining works were sold to benefit St. Dunstan’s Charity for the Blind. Her sister purchased a number of the works, and these became the basis for the De Morgan Foundation Collection.
The Legacy of Evelyn De Morgan
Though not well-known, Evelyn De Morgan’s art and life presented a new vision of what life could be for women in England as she stepped outside repressive Victorian and Edwardian gender norms. In this way, she is an important proto-feminist artist. She was also significant as a Pre-Raphaelite, although she came on the scene towards the end of the movement. Arts writer, Candy Bedworth states that “Art history scholars regularly pay homage to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Opinion is often divided though on this ‘boys club’ group of artists. They did re-write how women were portrayed in art, showing them as powerful, sensual, sexual beings. Although sadly, often in stories that ended badly. The ranks of the brotherhood were mostly closed to women as artists. You might be a wife, a mistress, a muse, a model, but you were a symbol, not a creator. Nevertheless, a small number of women connected to this movement did carve out a place for themselves. They made art that is both skilled and utterly beautiful”. De Morgan’s participation in this group, therefore, was of importance. Few other female Pre-Raphaelite artists existed, among them, Elizabeth Siddal, Julia Margaret Cameron, Marianne Stokes, Joanna Mary Wells, and Emma Sandys.
De Morgan’s explorations of various styles and movements, including the Pre-Raphaelites, the Aesthetic Movement, and Symbolism, as well as of spiritualist modes of thought and expression, paved the way for later artists to do the same. As art historian Anne Anderson explains, De Morgan inspired fellow Slade alumnus Mary Stuart-Wortley to experiment with more poetic and symbolic works (although the majority of her oeuvre was landscapes).
More than 50 of De Morgan’s oil paintings and 600 of her drawings, alongside artwork by her husband, are held by the De Morgan Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting and protecting the work of the couple. Through the Foundation, their work continues to be exhibited across the U.K. and United States.