Thursday 7th December - Jessie Bayes (1876-1970)

 Well, looking at those dates, it turns out that Violet Brunton is not going to be my most recent lady artist this Blogvent as today's victim made it all the way to the 1970s! Blimey. Hello, Jessie Bayes...

Now, I was hoping that I'd accidentally find a really obscure artist today and just end up telling you how she has been lost in the midst of time, but the name I pulled out of the hat this morning turns out to be a member of a whole artistic family and her brothers are very well documented. We'll see how we get on, but this might be a long one.  She's got a Wikipedia page but I think we know by now it could go either way...

The Bayes siblings

Unusually, Jessie wrote an autobiography of sorts which is very helpful of her.  It is The Bayes Saga, written in old age and unpublished, but wonderfully preserved online. This has helped me make sense of some of the records but it is also a very colourful evocation of the time and well worth a read. Jessie records that hygiene for the Victorians would make modern people cry and the piece about her mother's pregnancies and childbirths makes for sobering reading.  Out of eight Bayes children born to Alfred (1831-1909) and Emily (1837-1924) only Emmeline (1867-1957) , Walter (1869-1956), Gilbert (1872-1953) and Jessie (1876-1970) survived, and three of them became artists, which is warning enough.  Mind you, their father Arthur Walter Bayes (1831-1909) was also an artist so I blame the parents. Arthur married his distant half-cousin Emily after coming to London and working at Hatherley's, working to have his paintings at the Royal Academy.

Hand Loom Weavers (no date) Alfred Walter Bayes

In her book, Jessie recalls how basic the house she was born in was, with a tap as the only water, on the landing and only two or three rooms for a growing family. The family moved on and up with Alfred's growing reputation.  Jessie remembered a house in Adelaide Road where the family lived when Jessie was born and where they were recorded in the 1881 census. She pictured candlelight touching their belongings and a rickety conservatory where they kept their toys.  Within the decade the Bayes had moved to 82 Fellows Road, which would remain Jessie's home for many decades to come. It must have seemed luxurious after the other homes, as Jessie remembered 'we looked on our new house as lagging but a little behind Buckingham Palace.' She spoke rapturously about having a bath room with both hot and cold taps! Mind you, it did depend on a boiler in the kitchen which heated the water while cooking food so if it was a 'cold dinner day' there was no hot bath for you.   I really enjoyed reading Jessie's stories about being aware of the difference between her affluent little friends and the Bayes.  She manages to express the differences seen from the distance of the 1970s - '"They" were different from "us" - had I not once boasted of some specially delectable pudding mother had made, only to be confronted by a disdainful "Does your mother work in the kitchen?" It was my first introduction to Victorian snobbery, and may that Happy and Glorious by forgiven for the height and depths to which it attained before being mercifully slain by two World Wars.'

Arts and Crafts Casket (1890)

The article about Jessie's work in the 1914 International Studio reported that she had little formal or technical training 'though the atmosphere in which she was bred taught her much that is rarely acquired in the school.' Jessie did spend a little time at the Central School of Arts and Crafts during evenings, paid for by Gilbert, where she worked and learned, gaining the ability to put gilt on wood and write in an artistic manner, talents which would make her famous. One of the lovely details in her account of her childhood is her father's studio in Fellows Road - 'It was a cathedral, hardly less, and a little balcony overlooking it from the drawing room was pure romance. "They", at least, could boast nothing like this.' Under such an influence it would seem impossible not to be an artist.

The Bayes Cabinet (c.1912)

Detail of lock

Later, she went to Finsbury Art School, studying under her brother Walter, but combined that with travelling around the continent, to Belgium, Italy, France and Germany. It is interesting that, compared to other artists of her generation, she did not seemingly feel the pull to the RA schools, or the struggle to be accepted as an artist before she manages to build an exhibition record.  Maybe her parents didn't feel they could afford it but I wonder if the difference was that the family were artists, there was no struggle to legitimise the life choice, although Jessie hinted that her mother had other ideas for her. I wonder if Emmeline had a struggle to become a dressmaker in the family of artists.  She also married Jack Aumonier (of the same family that was mentioned in Harriette Sutcliffe's post a couple of days ago, such a small world). Interestingly, Jessie seems a little critical of her mother's treatment of her elder sister, commenting that Emmeline was tied too long to the domestic chores in the house through lack of servants and her mother's passion for gardening and romance novels. Jessie remarks that these pressures stifled her sister's creativity whereas the boys, and Jessie as the youngest sister, could have free range for theirs.

Cupid and Psyche (1914)

Her time at the Arts and Crafts School in an old house in Upper Regent Street formed her taste for William Morris influenced, late Pre-Raphaelite romance. Sydney Cockerell was one of the Directors as was William Letherby (whom the pupils called 'Wombat').  In her account, she thanked them profoundly for saving her from a job at Prudential which her mother had her lined up for. The loss to Insurance is definitely Arts gain...

Athena, Mistress of the Air (1929)

So, getting on to Jessie's career, she worked in a studio which the 1914 article likened to the original Arts and Crafts workshops, much like 'her avowed master, William Morris, Miss Bayes now works with a small group of assistant artists in the production of craftwork and decorative schemes of interiors of chapels and houses.' This combination of domestic and spiritual is a bit of a keynote for her, reflected in her Royal Academy exhibition entries.  I did wonder about how daunting it would have been being a basically un-formally-trained woman showing up.  Not only that, the family had lost their money in the Liberator Building Society collapse of 1892. Even that she manages to see as an adventure - her father let his enormous studio to Kathleen Figgis who became part of Jessie's workshop and a life-long friend. 

I Sing of England (early 20th century)

As for her Royal Academy entries, she showed La Foret de Brotonne as her debut in 1905, with Our Lady of Siena following in 1906. Watercolour "Hail Mary!" appeared in 1908, with another religious subject The Madonna of the Flocks entered into the 1909 exhibition, with "Behold the Handmaid of the Lord" appearing in 1910. I particularly liked the comment made by the Truth journal about her 1909 painting - 'Jessie Bayes' "Madonna of the Flocks" is nevertheless more dignified and more devoid of sentimentality than is usually the case with women painted by women.' I'll just leave that there...

Triptych (c.1916)

Two further religious subjects appeared in 1912 - Some have Entertained Angels Unawares and "O Ye Waters that be Above Heaven, Praise ye the Lord".  She also exhibited with the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society alarmingly prolifically, showing her illuminated manuscripts and decorated wooden furniture and bowls.  I think my favourite piece of her decorated furniture has to be this beauty...

Bedstead, 1913

There is no part of that bed that isn't beautifully decorated.  It is an astonishing work of art and you understand why there was so much interest in Jessie from the likes of The Magazine of Art and The International Studio. James Greig in his piece on Jessie in 1902 said 'She has a vivid imagination, a rare sense of colour and decorative design and a touch which renders her charming fancies in fascinating style.'

Is not the Dawn Upon the Hills (no date)

Her father died in 1909, and the news was broken to her by Walter's wife Kitty (his former model) who delicately yelled 'Your father's dead!' up the stairs at her. He had been knocked down by a lorry and died of his injuries. In a very touching memory, Jessie recalled every time she got a picture into the RA and he didn't, she would sit on his knee and cry saying 'I wish it had been you' as he said 'I'm glad it was you.'

The Erl King's Daughter Sending Faery Servants 
to their Several Tasks (1914)

She continued to exhibit at the RA and the Arts and Crafts Society all the way to 1935.  Her work was spread across watercolour, decorative objects, oil and tempera, the latter where she exhibited with the Society of Painters in Tempera along with Joseph Southall and Maxwell Armfield.  She travelled to America in the 1920s selling paintings in Chicago and Detroit, before returning home as her mother died. She became a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, serving on their council in the 1920s and 30s. In the post First World War period, much like other artists of her era, she worked on memorials in stained glass and rolls of honour.  In the census returns, she is last seen living with her sister Emeline and her husband, still in Fellows Road, listed as a 'Decorative Artist and Scribe.'  She remained unmarried, although in her memoir she recalled how she had once succumb to romantic socialism and become engaged to a German wood-carver.  She realised she didn't really like him and was just in love with the idea of a cottage with peasant pottery and checked tablecloths. To her shame, she called it off by letter just before the wedding.

Jessie, reading

Jessie Bayes is one of those people who I would like a year to get to know better as she is fascinating and having the story in her own words brings you an idea of her spirit and humour.  I will leave you with her final line from her memoir as it is absolutely beautiful: 

'I would like to feel that these memories could paint some pictures of a life forever passed away, yet not without its beauty.'