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Although Lois Sturt was painted by several fashionable artists of the era, including William Rothenstein and Wyndham Lewis, none captured her exuberance and restlessness quite like Ambrose McEvoy, who painted her on several occasions. As with many of McEvoy’s portraits, this study is dramatically modern, with its bright colouring conveying the vibrancy of a personality and appearance that turned many heads.

Sturt was, in the words of one writer, perhaps the brightest of the ‘Bright Young Things’.[1] The daughter of Humphrey Napier Sturt, 2nd Baron Alington, and Lady Feodorowna ‘Feo’ Yorke (although Feo had so many love affairs that her paternity was always questioned), she was born into one of the wealthiest families in Britain, owning property across the East End of London and Dorset.

Described as the most beautiful brunette in England – its ‘premier beauty’, as one American journalist put it – Sturt defied the conventions of the period. On one occasion she was caught by police speeding through central London at 51 miles per hour. In court it was explained that she had been taking part in a treasure hunt.[2]

As well as being an impetuous and ‘untameable spirit’, Sturt was also a keen artist, actor and dancer. Although written off as being something of a ‘good-time girl’, Sturt was a dedicated artist, and at one point wrote to McEvoy asking whether he ‘could possibly tell me of any place where I could draw for the next 6 weeks as the Slade has shut now […] It’s so tiresome having weeks to wait and nothing to do […] and it’s such an awful waste of time!’.[3]

[1] ‘British Girl Holds Record as Art Model’, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 May 1921, p. 4.

[2] Anon. 31 July 1924. ‘Society of Bright Young People Invents New Game that Ends in Police Court’, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p.8.

[3] Sturt, L. Letter from Lois Sturt to Ambrose McEvoy. [Manuscript.] LET/112. McEvoy Papers.