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Evelyn Dunbar
(1906 - 1960)
Self-portrait, c. 1927
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Size:
Height – 45.7cm
Width – 30.5cm
Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.297.
This unfinished self-portrait, which dates from the late 1920s, shows Dunbar as she saw herself when she was about 21. It is probably the latest, and the most ambitious, in a series of youthful self portraits dating from when she was 15 (collection Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) in which she sees herself – reflected in the mirror – surrounded by the accoutrements of the artist she wished to become, easel, canvas, palette; and the right-hand self-portrait below from a year or two later. In fact Dunbar was right-handed. Given the image reversal that self-portraitists have to contend with, it could be asked whether Dunbar has deliberately obscured the laterality of her hands. Be that as it may, she has left us with a self-image of thoughtfulness and concentration, with a hint or two of Bohemia in her dress and floppy hat.
We are grateful to Christopher-Campbell Howes, author of Evelyn Dunbar: A Life in Painting, for the above text. and use of the images below:
Evelyn Dunbar studied at Rochester School of Art, Chelsea School
of Art (1927) and the Royal College of Art (1929’33). She painted
murals from 1933 -36 at Brockley School, a collaboration with her
RCA tutor (and lover) Cyril Mahoney (1903’1968) and in 1937
they wrote and illustrated together Gardeners’ Choice.
In 1938 she set up the Blue Gallery in Rochester, exhibiting her
own work alongside that of Edward Bawden (1903’1989) and
Barnett Freedman (1901’1958) and others. In 1940 she was
appointed an official war artist, becoming the only woman (amongst
36 men) to be given a full time salaried position by the WAAC.
She held her only solo exhibition at Withersdane, Wye, Kent
in 1953, although the WAAC included numerous pieces in touring
exhibitions ranging from Aberdeen Art Gallery to MOMA, New York.
A posthumous exhibition was held in 2006 at St Barbe
Museum and Art Gallery, and in 2015 Liss Llewellyn mounted a
major retrospective of her recently rediscovered studio at Pallant
House Gallery.
![Evelyn Dunbar - Study II for designs for an embroidered quilt [HMO 689]](https://i0.wp.com/lissllewellyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Evelyn-Dunbar-Study-II-for-designs-for-an-embroidered-quilt-HMO-689.jpg?fit=791%2C1024&ssl=1)
![Evelyn Dunbar - Study I for designs for an embroidered quilt [HMO 689]](https://i0.wp.com/lissllewellyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Evelyn-Dunbar-Study-I-for-designs-for-an-embroidered-quilt-HMO-689.jpg?fit=676%2C1024&ssl=1)
![Evelyn Dunbar - Colour study for sub-gallery spandrels at Brockley County School for Boys [HMO 551]](https://i0.wp.com/lissllewellyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Evelyn-Dunbar-Colour-study-for-sub-gallery-spandrels-at-Brockley-County-School-for-Boys-HMO-551.jpg?fit=800%2C532&ssl=1)
