Evelyn De Morgan
Born Mary Evelyn Pickering August 30th 1855, London England …
Evelyn belonged to the pre-raphaelite movement
The niece of artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and a descendent of the Earl Leicester
She was homeschooled …she studied, Greek, Latin, French, German, and Italian and was educated in Classical literature and Mythology, and exposed at an early age to history books and Scientific texts, at a time when women or young girls where not really educated or allowed, because a woman with to much knowledge could prove to be dangerous in a male run society … ( my opinion )
Upon marrying De Morgan they lived half the year in London the other half in Florence until the outbreak of WW1 …
Evelyn Was a supporter of the suffragette movement and was a signatory on the declaration in favor of women’s suffrage of 1889.. she was also a pacifist and expresses a horror about World War I and the Boer war in 15 paintings, including the Red Cross and SOS …
Evelyn was a spiritualist and spiritualism change her perspective, and her paintings started to reflect more ideas of darkness and death. She used a range of motifs renaissance angels, heavenly aura’s, and a contrast between light and dark to represent spiritual ideas. she used complex allegory to depict her social commentary and spiritual beliefs, which reflect spiritual themes.. progress of the spirit, the materialism of life on earth and the imprisonment of the soul in the earthly body…
She wrote art is eternal, life is short, I will make up for it now. I have not a moment to lose….
Her parents wanted to introduce her into society, but she rejected it. She enrolled in the Royal College of Art and then moved to the Slade School.of Art…
Beginning in 1875 Evelyn visited her uncle in Florence, which enabled her study the great artists of the Renaissance… Botticelli Is especially visible in her works…
She was able to develop friendship with Dante Gabrielle Rossetti…
The vast majority of De Morgan’s works from the mid 1880s are broadly spiritual …
The Red Cross 1918…
The Dryad 1884-1885…
Hero holding the Beacon for Leander-which f anyone read Christopher Marlowe’s poem Hero and Leander, which was written back n the 1590’s …
Evelyn sounds like a very interesting and passionate woman. Her art is very deep and thought provoking. Thank you once again for the history of the artist and how it shows in her work. Well done Halina.
Hooray Halina! Another fascinating subject that I had never heard of, but learned so much about. It’s always so interesting to me how almost anybody we’ve not heard of have so many interesting stories about them.