Augustus Edwin John
Dorelia McNeill (1881-1969), 1907
Black chalk on paper
10 x 12½ in. (25.4 x 31.8 cm)
Signed 'John-07' middle-right
Philip Mould & Co.
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Augustus John was at the height of his powers when drawing his close family and friends, and few subjects had a more profound impact on his artistic sensibilities than his mistress Dorelia McNeill, whose likenesses on paper rank amongst John’s finest works.
Dorelia had been born Dorothy McNeill in December 1881 to William George McNeill a mercantile clerk, and Kate Florence Neal, the daughter of a dairy farmer. She grew up with her six siblings in Camberwell and, along with her sisters, was taught to be a typist. At the extremely early age of sixteen Dorothy edited a magazine called The Idler, before briefly becoming a writer and then a secretary. Michael Holroyd, John’s biographer, comments that Dorothy was satisfied with her career as a junior secretary but spent her evenings attending art classes at Westminster School of Art.[1] It was there that she studied with several talented young artists and met Gwen John at a party.
After meeting Gwen’s brother Augustus John in 1903, Dorelia was invited to join a ménage à trois with John and his wife Ida and went to live in the family home. John had five children with Ida and with Dorelia a further four, two being born prior to Ida’s untimely death from puerperal fever in Paris in 1907, the same year this portrait was drawn.
Dorelia was very much a creation of John’s imagination; she was his ideal woman, the balance between mistress and mother.[2] Although she had always lived in the city, undertaken a profession, had supported herself and been born into a conventional middle class family, John sought to construct a fictional history for Dorothy as Dorelia Boswell, a gypsy, and dressed her in flowing skirts and broad-brimmed hats for his portraits.[3] In the present sketch, John draws Dorelia simply, in profile, with her hair pulled back, drawing attention to her elegant, swan-like neck. The expression on her face is passive and serene and through its simplicity the viewer is reminded of Holroyd’s comment that Dorelia ‘was hypnotically beautiful – almost embarrassingly so: ‘one could not take one’s eyes off her’ Will Rothenstein remembered.’[4]
[1] M. Holroyd, Augustus John: The New Biography (London, 1996), p.128
[2] Ibid p.127
[3] Ibid pp.128-9
[4] Ibid p.129
Augustus John was at the height of his powers when drawing his close family and friends, and few subjects had a more profound impact on his artistic sensibilities than his mistress Dorelia McNeill, whose likenesses on paper rank amongst John’s finest works.
Dorelia had been born Dorothy McNeill in December 1881 to William George McNeill a mercantile clerk, and Kate Florence Neal, the daughter of a dairy farmer. She grew up with her six siblings in Camberwell and, along with her sisters, was taught to be a typist. At the extremely early age of sixteen Dorothy edited a magazine called The Idler, before briefly becoming a writer and then a secretary. Michael Holroyd, John’s biographer, comments that Dorothy was satisfied with her career as a junior secretary but spent her evenings attending art classes at Westminster School of Art.[1] It was there that she studied with several talented young artists and met Gwen John at a party.
After meeting Gwen’s brother Augustus John in 1903, Dorelia was invited to join a ménage à trois with John and his wife Ida and went to live in the family home. John had five children with Ida and with Dorelia a further four, two being born prior to Ida’s untimely death from puerperal fever in Paris in 1907, the same year this portrait was drawn.
Dorelia was very much a creation of John’s imagination; she was his ideal woman, the balance between mistress and mother.[2] Although she had always lived in the city, undertaken a profession, had supported herself and been born into a conventional middle class family, John sought to construct a fictional history for Dorothy as Dorelia Boswell, a gypsy, and dressed her in flowing skirts and broad-brimmed hats for his portraits.[3] In the present sketch, John draws Dorelia simply, in profile, with her hair pulled back, drawing attention to her elegant, swan-like neck. The expression on her face is passive and serene and through its simplicity the viewer is reminded of Holroyd’s comment that Dorelia ‘was hypnotically beautiful – almost embarrassingly so: ‘one could not take one’s eyes off her’ Will Rothenstein remembered.’[4]
[1] M. Holroyd, Augustus John: The New Biography (London, 1996), p.128
[2] Ibid p.127
[3] Ibid pp.128-9
[4] Ibid p.129
Provenance
Jessica Goodyear, New York;Private collection, UK.
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