SKU: 11962
Hilda Carline
(1889 - 1950)
Portrait of Miss Silcox
£3,500
Hilda Carline (1889 - 1950)
£3,500
Size:
Height – 77.5cm
Width – 60cm
1 in stock
Lucy Mary Silcox (1862 – 1947) was a notable English headmistress and feminist educator. She was an English headteacher and advocate for women’s education and suffrage. She led several girls’ schools, including Saint Felix School in Southwold, where she was head until 1926. Renowned for her progressive approach, Mary brought artists and thinkers into the school and encouraged pupils to value truth, beauty, and self-governance.
Silcox was also President of the local National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and was active in campaigning for women’s voting rights. After her death in 1947, she bequeathed her books and paintings to her school and to Newnham College, Cambridge.
Hilda Carline studied at Percyval Tudor-Hart’s School of Painting
in Hampstead (1913) and served with the Women’s Land Army
(1916’18), before enrolling at the Slade School of Fine Art under
Henry Tonks in 1918. Quickly gaining critical recognition, she
exhibited at the LG (1921), the RA and the NEAC.
This impressive start to her career faltered, particularly after
she married, in 1925, the artist Stanley Spencer (1891’1959).
Their turbulent union resulted in periods when Carline hardly
painted at all and eventually, in 1942, she suffered a breakdown.
Nevertheless, she never neglected painting entirely, and even
during these challenging times produced animated, vigorous work,
such as her 1933 portrait of Patricia Preece (1894’1966) ‘ her
husband’s mistress ‘ entitled Lady in Green.
After her divorce in 1937, Carline began working more
frequently once again, producing numerous pastels which explored
her religious beliefs.
