Helen Saunders
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
.
Helen Saunders was born in Bedford Park, Ealing. (Peppin, Brigid. 'Helen Saunders, 1885-1963', Ashmolean Museum Oxford, 1996)
Saunders studied at the Slade School of Art from 1906 to 1907, and later at the Central School of Art & Design
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. The school has an outstanding international reputation, and is considered one of the world's leading art and design institutions...
. She exhibited in the Twentieth Century Art exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, it was founded in 1901 as one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London, and it has a long...
in 1914, one of the first British artists to point in a nonfigurative
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
style. In 1915 she became associated with the Vorticists
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
, signing their manifesto in the first edition of the literary magazine
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
BLAST and contributing to their inaugural exhibition. She and Jessica Dismorr
Jessica Dismorr
Jessica Dismorr was an English painter and illustrator and one of only two women members of the Vorticist movement.-Early life:Dismorr was born at Gravesend, England, and moved with her family to Hampstead in the 1890s...
were the only female members.
She exhibited with the London Group in 1916, but from 1920 she increasingly turned away from the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
and adopted a more realist
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
style, working in still life, landscapes and portraiture, and latterly exhibiting with the Holborn Art Society.
She died of accidental gas poisoning at her home in Holborn, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on January 1, 1963. Later that year, her sister Ethel donated to the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
three of her drawings from her vorticist period.
Her 1996 biography by Brigid Peppin includes a foreword by Richard Cork
Richard Cork
Dr Richard Cork is a British art historian, editor, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator. He has been an art critic for the Evening Standard, The Listener, The Times and the New Statesman. Cork was also editor for Studio International. He is a past Turner Prize judge.-Life and work:Richard...
who states that:
- "Since Saunders' early work earned her a respected place in experimental circles, the gathering obscurity of her later years seems cruel. She endured the neglect with uncomplaining stoicism, for her innate warmth prevented her from succumbing to bitterness."
Peppin discovered a great deal of previously unknown information about Saunders' life and work. Despite her long career, however, fewer than 200 of her works are currently known. She was included in the Nasher Museum of Art
Nasher Museum of Art
The Nasher Museum of Art is the art museum of Duke University, and is located on Duke's campus in Durham, North Carolina, USA. The $24 million museum was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and opened on October 2, 2005...
at Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
held an exhibition entitled The Vorticists
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
: Rebel Artists in London and New York, 1914-18 from September 30, 2010 through January 2, 2011.
Sources
- Richard Cork, "Vorticists (act. 1914–1919)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 2 July 2007
- Helen Saunders, Tate Gallery biography
- Peppin, Brigid. Helen Saunders 1885-1963, Ashmolean Museum Oxford, 1996