Private
Collection
Collection
Gertrude Hermes
(1901 - 1983)
Waterlilies, (the original block), 1930
Institutional Collection
Gertrude Hermes (1901 - 1983)
Bronze
19 x 14 x 14 cm
Size:
Height – 19cm
Width – 14cm
Naomi Mitchison introduced Hermes in the catalogue to her Whitechapel
retrospective, 1967, as ‚Äúthat wild girl Gert Hermes… always this burrowing
underneath… under the leaves and water… the artist as magician – or if
you like priestess”. Prunella Clough chose the selection; these three friends
collaborated on a feminine attitude to desire.
Hermes shared the modern, reforming aesthetic of sunlight and air and
a commitment to an avant-garde modernism, favouring the integration of
the fine and applied arts.
Frogs II was commissioned for a bird bath by Australian-born Sydney
Cooper, who spent his weekdays in London bringing fresh eggs from his
Hampshire farm to his Chelsea friends. Hermes had post-war casts made
when she was flush.
The amphibious enchantment began with a chalk pebble carving – Frog,
1926; a bronze later exhibited at Paul Nash’s exhibition Room and Book
(Zwemmer Gallery, 1932) was described as “a good example of modern
English ornament in which a natural object has been happily formalised…
Miss Gertrude Hermes has designed many excellent shapes which are cast in
brass or other material suitable for door knockers and similar half decorative,
half useful things.”
In 1934, Hermes used the inchoate qualities of clay for Frogs I (the
precursor of Frogs II) as she did for two schematic figurines, Arms above
Head and Arms Akimbo (one crested, one cloven), continuing figure
revelations exploring a two in one duality. Hermes’ Frog Motif ‘ Doorknocker,
1935, added to the palimpsest of magical transmogrifications.
Commentary by Jane Hill, curator and author of books on modern British art, including The Sculpture of Gertrude
Hermes (2011).
Gertrude Hermes attended the Beckenham School of Art (c.1921)
and the Brook Green School of Painting and Sculpture (1922),
where she met Blair Hughes-Stanton (1902’1981), whom she
married in 1926.
Although they divorced in 1933, they collaborated on several
projects, including wood engravings for The Pilgrim’s Progress,
published in 1928. She also collaborated with her friends Naomi
Mitchison and Prunella Clough (1919’1999) to explore depictions
of feminine desire.
The 1930s were a prosperous decade for Hermes, who exhibited
for the first time at the Redfern Gallery in 1932. She also showed
regularly at the RA from 1934, was elected a member of the LG in
1935, and in 1939 represented Britain at the Venice Biennale.
In the late 1940s to early 1950s, she taught at the Central School
of Art, and became the first woman engraver to be elected a full
member of the RA in 1971 ‘ eventually receiving an OBE in 1981.