‘Eileen Mayo, the loveliest of girls, with bright yellow hair as fine as spun gold and big dark grey eyes … I put her in all my chief pictures.’- Laura Knight, 1927



Laura Knight was one of the foremost British artists of the twentieth century. In this striking work, Eileen Mayo DBE, Knight’s primary model at this date, is portrayed as a ballerina – a theme that captivated the artist throughout the 1920s. It was painted in 1927, the year that Knight was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy and is amongst the first paintings of Mayo by Knight.

This painting marks the beginning of a reciprocal artistic relationship between the two women. They first met when Mayo approached Knight and offered to model. Mayo was a striking figure, with strong statuesque features and long blonde hair – she was affectionately known by Knight as the ‘golden girl’. Although quickly gaining renown as an artist’s model, Mayo aspired to become an artist herself, and Knight helped launch her career, securing her first major commission – a book cover for dance critic and historian Cyril Beaumont OBE’s publication – in the same year this work was painted. Knight’s stardom was on the ascent when this work was painted – the following year she was awarded a silver medal in the paintings category at the Amsterdam Olympics and the year after she received a damehood.

The present work is a variation on a theme that culminated in the monumental oil painting Dressing for the Ballet [fig. 1], which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1927. It toured to the United States in 1931 but was later damaged and then reworked by Knight, who re-exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1947 as No. 1 Dressing Room [fig. 2]. When it was first shown, Dressing for the Ballet was heralded as ‘One of the Most Admired Pictures on Exhibition’ and was warmly received by the critics.[1]

The nude female model, when painted by a woman, was still a controversial subject at this time. This much is clear from a film produced by British Pathé in 1927, filmed the same year as the present work, which documents Knight painting Mayo. In the background, Knight’s masterpiece, The Toilet, depicting Mayo seated nude on a chair, was strategically positioned to ensure that Mayo’s painted body was constantly covered, either by another canvas or by Knight herself. Fourteen years earlier, Knight had caused a furore with Self Portrait with model, Ella Louise Naper - a work that depicted the artist painting a nude model in her studio. It is now considered to be Knight’s most iconic work and hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London. During Knight’s artistic training, female students were prohibited from painting live models. The artist clearly rebelled against this restrictive education as, thanks to Mayo’s professional modelling, the prevalence of the female nude in Knight’s oeuvre is particularly pervasive.

As an artist herself, Mayo used her position as an artist’s model to her advantage. She was employed not only by Laura Knight but also the likes of Dod Procter and Ernst Procter, gaining unprecedented access to their studios and working methods. Of her modelling career, she said: ‘All the time I have been posing for painters I have been studying their methods and listening to their talk. In this way I have learned more than I ever learned in an art school’.[2] Mayo became celebrated for her careful observation and developed a precise working style which lent itself to print making. She contributed significantly to the Australian art scene upon moving there in 1952; she was invited by the Australian National Travel Association to produce posters advertising Australia as a tourist destination, painted murals for the likes of the Australian Museum in Syndey, and was commissioned by the Australian Stamp Advisory Committee to produce six iconic designs for circulation across the country.[3] Mayo’s career culminated when she was made a Dame of the British Empire, just three days before her death in 1994.

[1] The Sphere, 7 May 1927, p.1.

[2] Daily Herald, 16 September 1930, Tate Archive, TGA 916.

[3] Sara Cooper, (2021) Eileen Mayo. London: Eiderdown Books, p.38.