Letters in Painting: Gwen John

Self-portrait with Letter (1907) by Gwen John

Gwen John (1876-1939) was a Welsh artist who worked mostly in France. Her paintings are mainly portraits of anonymous female sitters, are rendered in a range of closely related tones.

In 1916, Gwen John wrote in a letter: "I think a picture ought to be done in 1 sitting or at most 2. For that one must paint a lot of canvases probably and waste them." Her surviving oeuvre is comparatively small, comprising 158 known oil paintings which rarely exceed 24 inches in height or width. The majority are portraits, but she also painted still lifes, interiors and a few landscapes. 

Her notebooks and letters contain numerous personal formulae for observing nature, painting a portrait, designating colors by a system of numbers, and the like. 

Gwen John's art, in its quietude and its subtle colour relationships, stands in contrast to her brother's far more vivid and assertive work. Though she was once overshadowed by her popular brother, critical opinion now tends to view Gwen as the more talented of the two.

The Marchesa Casati (1919) by August Edwin John