Friday 15th December - Mary Lightbody Gow (1851-1929)

 As we get to the end of the second week, I have decided to pick a lady who has a brilliant middle name. We are also going to be visiting a family of artists again. I see patterns emerging (well, maybe not the awesome middle name bit) and so we better get on with meeting the marvellous Mary Lightbody Gow...

Oh yes, we are spoiled today as I have a photograph of our lady artist. Mary L Gow was so well known in her own life time she appeared in an article that also featured people like Louise Jopling and Laura Alma Tadema, whom she even did a portrait of, look!

Lady Alma-Tadema (undated)

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  With a brother and father in the same business, you would think that Mary would not get forgotten but then who has recently seen an exhibition that involved either James Gow (1821-1886) or Andrew Carrick Gow  (1848-1920)? The Victorian period is lucky to have so much media surrounding it, especially by the end of the century, but that can only tell us how many of these bright, popular artists are just lost in their pages.

A Kiss Goodnight (1884)

James Gow married Jane Carrick in their native Lanarkshire in Scotland in 1845.  By the time their eldest son Charles arrived around a year later, the couple had relocated to London.  They were living in Islington and by the looks of it, two of Jane's brothers had come with them, with Robert Carrick (1920-1905) listed as an artist, like James Gow, and Alex Carrick (1831-1895) listed as a lithographer. James and Jane's next son Andrew Carrick Gow was born in 1848, followed by Mary Lightbody Gow on Christmas Day 1851, taking her middle name from her maternal grandmother's maiden name. James Jnr followed next, then Jane Carrick Gow, named after her mother in 1856.  Neither Jane senior or junior survived past the end of summer, leaving James with four small children.

Harmony (undated)

By 1861, the children were all in school and the family still live in St Pancras, but moved to Bloomsbury in 1864 when James remarried, this time to a governess, Elizabeth Ann Worth.  I wonder if it was her influence that led to Mary being recorded as a governess in the 1871 census, but she must have been studying art by that point, both at the London School of Art and Heatherleys (founded in 1845)...

Two students at Heatherley's School of Art, drawing from the antique

The arrive of a step-mother, also resulted in two more Gow siblings, Elizabeth (1866-1924) and Edith (1868-1932), The 1870s brought the Royal Academy, and in 1873, Mary exhibited Card Castles in the same exhibition as her father and brother Andrew. This was followed the year after by A Box at the Pantomime and A New Acquaintance. Neither exhibition scored Mary any mentions, with only a couple for her father and brother. Her first mention seems to have comes from the Art Journal in 1875 - 'The Institute of Water-Colour painters has added three women to its membership, they are Mary Gow, Marian Chase and Miss Coleman.' The picture she had submitted to gain membership was Enid's Wedding Morning and fully justified her membership, according to reports.

The Blue Shawl (1911)

Mary did not submit another picture to the RA (or at least, didn't have one accepted) until 1880, but in the meantime she was busy with water-colours. The Art Journal reported on a 'more than ordinarily interesting' exhibition of the Institute of Painters in Water-Colour which included 'admirable examples' of her work. A small painting she exhibited was 'extremely competent,' according to the Magazine of Art and did 'credit to the artist and her family.' The Art Journal also noted a painting called Convalescent where a little girl with a doll was being read to by a friend, which the magazine considered 'clever, but needs attention to texture and colour.' She also drew attention for her work Children's Garden Party where the newspaper claimed she did 'well with both people and trees.'

Fairy Tales (1880)

1880 saw Mary's painting Fairy Tales at the Royal Academy, which was described as the 'completest example of her work' that the Evening Mail could remember. They judged it full of childish charm. Also in 1880, Mary exhibited 'an agreeable portrait group of children' at the Institute of Painters in Water-Colour, which was mentioned in the Pall Mall Gazette. The Daily News was not quite so enthused, criticising the over-crowding of objects in the piece but admitting that 'the little girl is pretty with her abundant chevelure.' That's hair, by the way. T'uh, critics.

An Invitation (1881)

1881 saw the Gow family living at a new address in Fitzroy Square after James Gow had been widowed again. At home were Andrew, Mary, James jnr, Elizabeth and Edith, together with three servants. Mary's painting at the Institute of Painters in Water-Colour, An Invitation caused the London Evening Standard to report that it was 'creditable for ease of posture and glow of colour' and the Manchester Courier praised it saying it 'shows a great improvement on her former works.'

The Godmother (1883)

1882's work Something Interesting showed children reading storybooks again and the Art Journal described it as 'a good little canvas.' Continuing the pretty domestic scenes, her 1883 work The Godmother was described in the Magazine of Art as 'especially pleasing,'  She continued her good spell with works in the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition, where most of the pieces were described by the Magazine of Art as 'below average', but it was noted that Mary had submitted some good drawings.

Afternoon Tea in Regent Street (1885)

Her final appearance at the Royal Academy seems to be 1885 and Tea Time which could possibly be the same as Afternoon Tea in Regent Street. Whilst not a very regular contributor to the RA, as opposed to the water-colour societies, I wondered if her withdrawal and the death of her father around the same time were connected. I don't know her reasoning for not appearing at the RA - maybe it was intentional, maybe she couldn't get accepted - but the newspapers mention her water-colour societies works far more than any appearance at the RA, so maybe she just didn't see the point in chasing the RA as opposed to other galleries such as the Grosvenor or the Dudley. 

The Willow Pattern Plate (1886)

Mary's work The Willow Pattern Plate, shown at the Royal Institute, shows a mother using a willow pattern plate as a story book, telling her daughter the story behind the design. The Magazine of Art reported that the 'composition, design, and colours are so good that although the subject is a trite one, the picture avoids sentimentality.' She also appeared at Messr Cassell's Black and White exhibition at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street alongside Alice Havers and was one of the plates in the Christmas edition of The Graphic.

By the 1891 census, the siblings are down to Andrew, listed as a 'Royal Academician', Mary, merely an 'artist', Elizabeth and Edith, together with their servants at 15 Grove End Road. Her appearances in the newspapers and art magazines continued with mentions of her regular appearances at the Black and White exhibitions, likening her to Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel, a French water-colourist who had a similar style in works such as this one...

The Pupils of Mademoiselle Genseigne (undated) Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel

Fair Rosamund's Bower (undated) Mary L Gow

It was added that her work was 'well-nigh too dainty' which I'm not sure if that is praise or criticism. 1896 seems to have been a busy year for Mary in the newspapers, appearing at the New Gallery in a sea of Symbolists where her pictures The Sampler and An Interlude would 'appeal to everyone with an eye for delicate colour and a feeling for simple sentiment.' Meanwhile, her appearance at the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colour with A Portrait Sketch assured the reader 'that the author of those extraordinarily dainty things in the New Gallery can be very vigorous and offhand when necessary.' 

In 1897, the Berlin Photographic Company published a photogravure of Mary's painting Your Majesty...

Your Majesty (1897)

The moment illustrated was the early morning call paid on Princess Victoria by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain to announce the death of King William and her accession to the throne. The London Evening Standard described the scene thus - 'The girlish Queen, loosely and hastily arrayed in deference to their summons, receives the intimation of her august destiny, and its tremendous responsibilities with the simplicity and youthful inexperience that was her charm then, and with the dignity that sixty years have but heightened and sustained.'

By the end of Queen Victoria's reign, Mary had become a member of the female art establishment, cemented by pieces like Arthur Fish's article in 1901.  Fish wrote 'Miss Gow's delightfully delicate drawings are always a feature of the exhibitions of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colour ... As an illustrator she has few equals.'

Sydney Prior Hall (1890s)

In 1906, aged 54, Mary married fellow artist Sydney Prior Hall, who was also the child of an artist (animal painter Harry Hall).  He was a widow, his first wife dying over a decade before and his work echoed Mary's, including black and white illustrations, which he did for Tom Brown's School Days in 1885.  Mary's own illustration work appeared in books such as William Wordsworth's We Are Seven...

We Are Seven (1889)

In terms of her later art, I think one of the most touching images she painted came from 1914 entitled The Gow Brothers...

The Gow Brothers (1914)

This one baffled me to start with - was it meant to be her own brothers Charles, James and Andrew? Or was it James's sons, Andrew (1887-1978), James (1890-1929) and Roderick (1893-1916).  I'm going to plump for the second option as all three boys were old enough to go off to war, poor Roderick dying in the Battle of Jutland. If I was feeling fanciful, I would suggest this is a couple of years after its 1914 date, as the youngest child in the image is seperated from his brothers, as he would be by death.

Royal Academician Andrew died in 1920, followed in 1923 by James.  Mary lost Sydney in 1922, then she and Charles both died in 1929, Charles in March and Mary on 27th May. In her probate, she left everything, all £28K, to her half-sister Edith.

We only have nine more days of Blogvent to go and I think we can see very strong patterns forming about what it means to be a female painter in the last decades of the nineteenth century, what damage or benefit there is in having a father or brother in the art world, what opinions, prejudices and expectations your predominently male audience and critics are going to have and how any woman can breakthrough all that and make her mark. We'll see how the rest of the Blogvent ladies do...