Afternoon into Evelyn

Allen Ashley reviews “Painted Dreams; The Art of Evelyn De Morgan”, an in-person exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, 19 October 2024 to 9 March 2025. Photos by Sarah Doyle.

If your interests encompass Victorian fine art, Classical mythology and female pioneers, you will likely already be aware of Evelyn De Morgan. Part of her fame rests on her business and marital partnership with the Arts and Crafts ceramicist William De Morgan, but more and more these days Evelyn is being recognised and celebrated as an important trailblazer for all female British and British-based artists who followed in her footsteps. Much of her subject matter was taken from mythology, scripture and fantasy and so this current exhibition comes highly recommended to all BFS members. And it’s free to go to. 

Here’s my full report:

I visited with Sarah Doyle on a Tuesday afternoon. There was a half-term art workshop for kids in an adjoining room but otherwise the place was fairly empty, allowing Sarah and me plenty of time to look, absorb and reflect. Wolverhampton Art Gallery is classic yellow stone Victorian brickwork outside but mostly light, airy, white-walled and modern within. The attached café “Gaze” serves nice cakes, teas and coffees; the souvenir shop was a little disappointing with no exhibition guidebook on offer. “Painted Dreams” is located across three rooms on the first floor and even a deep visit can be accomplished within an hour. 

(Pictured: Allen at the exhibition entrance. Photo by Sarah Doyle.)

A little background: Mary Evelyn De Morgan (nee Pickering) (1855-1919) was born to upper middle class parents in London. Determined to make her living as a professional artist despite the social barriers against women’s careers during the mid-late Victorian era, she studied at the progressive Slade School of Art and began exhibiting in London galleries such as the Grosvenor from the age of 21. Evelyn was a contemporary of William Morris and his associates and was later the wife of the celebrated ceramicist William De Morgan. Mr J. J. Brownsword, then Curator of Wolverhampton Municipal Art Gallery, admired her distinctive style – combining human forms alongside intricate symbolism, using bold, bright colours and with a meticulous attention to detail – and he commissioned a solo exhibition from her. In February 1907, Evelyn exhibited 26 of her paintings along with a bronze sculpture (of Medusa’s head) in Wolverhampton, which was a trailblazing moment for a female artist at the time. This exhibition today recreates that historic show. Of course, this means that some of Evelyn’s very best paintings such as “Ariadne on Naxos” aren’t on display here, but we can only applaud the bravura of the modern curators in re-staging the previous show with as much historical accuracy as possible. Personally, I would like to see more museums and galleries taking similar steps. 

Her work was described at the time as “painted dreams”. Contemporary (male) artist G. F. Watts said of Evelyn – “I looked upon her as the first woman artist of the day – if not of all time.” Amongst the ephemera from the original exhibition, we have a photo of Evelyn c1895, her painter’s palette – stained and now devoid of all oil paint – and a photo of the forward-thinking curator Mr Brownsword, complete with Lord Kitchener style moustache. The paintings are exhibited in two rooms plus an annexe – low light with brownish-aubergine walls and each painting given its due eye-level space and conventionally hung just as they would have been in Edwardian times. 

But what of the details of Evelyn’s paintings? Many of them have centralised female characters, often from mythology, as Evelyn foregrounds and explores the feminine experience that is sometimes lost behind the sound and fury of male warriors and gods fighting their battles. The women’s robes are often rich and vibrant – orange in “The Love Potion” 1903, red in “The Hourglass” 1904-5, this latter modelled by Jane Morris. On other occasions the women are loosely covered or unclothed. As was the case with most depictions of females in the broad Pre-Raphaelite canon, the models / sitters are recognisably white, Northern European Caucasian rather than representing the likely skin tones of the original subjects. That’s simply a statement of where Fine Art was at that point in British history. 

Of course, I have become extra familiar with Evelyn’s work through Sarah Doyle’s commissions as Pre-Raphaelite Society Poet in Residence. One such artwork is “Luna” 1885. The moon goddess rests in the cradle of the crescent moon, the loose ropes that entwine her speak to growing Victorian scientific knowledge of Earth’s gravitational pull keeping the orb suspended in the firmament. Her face is turned away in sad reflection – a common motif in Pre-Raphaelite art – and the whole composition is a restful pastel assemblage of creams, light blues and light browns. Of extra interest, on the frame Evelyn has attributed the work to “Pickering” – her maiden name.

(Photo of Evelyn de Morgan: By Unknown author – demorgan.org.uk, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1802404)

Moving on, the life-size “Flora” 1894 depicts the Roman goddess of flowers, often also associated with Spring. She poses barefoot in sunshine, standing in front of a ripened fig tree, flowers on the ground below her and clutched in her fingers; flowers are also prevalent in the pattern of her dress. Small birds perch in the trees. As well as the obvious influence from Botticelli in the style of the goddess’ hair, one can see a common “natural” consonance with the designs of Morris & Co. Going back to what I said earlier, she is, of course, white skinned, fair-haired and blue-eyed. 

It’s well-known that many Victorian (and some Edwardian) paintings told stories and offered moral lessons to the viewer. To modern eyes, some elements may jar. For example, we have “Love’s Passing” 1883-4, based on an elegy by the Latin poet Tibilus. The dreamy young couple with their orange and red robes and sunset-tinged skin lounge by a lake and listen to a red-winged angel playing double pipes – the music of their love. But on a further shore in the background is an old woman and a scythe-wielding Angel of Death, their foreshadowed future, if you like. Likewise, “The Grey Sisters” 1880-1 (attributed to “Mrs William De Morgan”) depicts an episode from Goethe’s tragedy “Faust”. Having made a deal with the devil, Faust is visited by four sisters. In the caught moment of this painting, we have an outdoors scene: a closed iron gate supported by stone pillars ether side bisects the painting vertically. The three rejected sisters depart on the right – they are “debt”, “want” and “need”. On the left, our bearded, slightly Moses-like hero receives a gentle touch from the sister “care”. 

A slightly more buried message is apparent in “Earthbound” 1897, where an elderly king counts his gold whilst a female Angel of Death throws a star-filled night sky depicting cloak over him. In the actual sky in the distance a female angel celebrates the new dawn. The composition has a notable William Blake influence apparent. Produced in 1897, the year the first Women’s Suffrage group was formed, this is a painted dream of a move towards a future of women’s emancipation. Evelyn was a noted pacifist who experienced from distance Britain’s involvement in the Crimean War, the Boer Wars and the First World War. She was a believer in spiritual values. In 1907, the year this exhibition was first mounted, she joined the Women’s Guild of Arts, founded by May Morris and Elizabeth Turner with the aim of promoting equality for other women artists. Next to the finished “Earthbound” painting there is also a black and white preparatory study (drawing) in which Evelyn has sketched a nude female figure to get the correct recumbent posture of the king. At that stage, access for female students to draw male nudes was severely restricted so she had to make do. 

Other notable highlights include “The Storm Spirits” 1900 – forceful female figures representing the elements of rain, thunder and lightning. Even though the spirits are frozen in motion there is a strong sense of action to this piece. This particular painting was the first in-person encounter for me and Sarah back when the De Morgans’ work was “permanently” housed at Wandsworth Museum. Sarah wrote a poem about this painting; I wrote my poem “Dream Ships” about Wiliam De Morgan’s pottery. Yes, we go way back!

“Port After Stormy Seas” 1905 is so recognisably by Evelyn – a recumbent maiden on a rocky shoreline, cream silk and cotton robes, bare feet. Above her, against a background of roiling seas, a brown-cloaked and brown-winged death angel prepares to take her off but maybe not just yet – its face is turned away from the human subject. This oil painting is based on a verse from Edmund Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” (1590) which reads: 

“Sleep after toyle (toil), 
Port after stormy seas, 
Ease after warre (war), 
Death after life does greatly please.”  

Gosh, if you want Gothic, it’s here in bucketfuls!

We have a notable, Classically themed pairing next. “Helen of Troy” 1898 – shows the tragic heroine white skinned and with light reddish-blonde hair, surrounded by doves and roses, gazing into a mirror bearing the image of the goddess Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, on its carved back and handle. Helen pulls at one lock of her hair with a raised arm. Like a darker mirror image, cleverly displayed to the right alongside this painting, is “Cassandra”, also 1898. Cassandra wears a blue and gold robe, both arms raised, pulling in frustration at her dark red hair, with the city of Troy – looking somewhat like a medieval Venice – beginning to burn behind her. Cassandra, as I’m sure you will know, was cursed by Apollo to always accurately predict the future but to never be believed or heeded. A clear example of a gifted woman being sidelined or ignored – or “gaslit” in today’s terminology – and an unsurprising subject for Evelyn’s work. 

Of course, old paintings sometimes go awry or get damaged. In 1991, sadly, there was a fire at a warehouse storing some of Evelyn’s work. So, in the third room, modern artist Paul Francis-Walker has done a sterling job of recreating three lost master (or mistress) pieces missing from the original show. We also have a timeline and a looped biographical video presented by the lovely Sarah Hardy from the De Morgan Foundation.

If you love painting, if you love mythological and fantasy inspired art, particularly that associated with the later Pre-Raphaelites, try to get to see this exhibition which still has a couple more weeks to run. Folks, we are living in a golden age of fine art exhibitions. Yes, I know the going rate at places like the National Gallery or the Royal Academy is about £22 but Evelyn’s oeuvre is available to visit gratis. Even a dyed in the wool believer in the maxim “Everything’s available in London” couldn’t resist a trip to the lovely West Midlands.

“Painted Dreams; The Art of Evelyn De Morgan” is at Wolverhampton Art Gallery from 19 October 2024 to 9 March 2025. Free entry.