Peyton Skipwith enjoys an exhibition that reasserts the reputation of a leading female figure in Victorian art
IN the early 1960s, when Victorian art was at the nadir of its fortunes, Helen Allingham (1848–1926) was regarded as the doyenne of the ‘Jolly Hollyhocks School’ of watercolour painting. Her entire output, and sole subject matter, was deemed to consist of rather twee view of Surrey cottages with roses rambling round the porch and hollyhocks beside the door. True, she did paint a number of such scenes, but she also painted a great deal more and she only lived in Surrey for a mere seven years of her 78-year life.
Born Helen Paterson, the daughter of a doctor, she was brought up in Altrincham, Cheshire, until she was 14, when her father died of diphtheria, as did her three-year-old sister. After this tragedy, her mother moved the family to Birmingham, where Helen attended the School of Art; two years later, she moved to London and entered the Royal Academy Schools and, very soon after, she was receiving her first commissions for black-and-white magazine illustrations.
These were not sentimental scenes, but tough and gritty drawings of social deprivation designed to appeal to audiences reared on Luke Fildes’s Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward and Frank Holl’s No Tidings from the Sea.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin December 27, 2017 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin December 27, 2017 sayısından alınmıştır.
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