How Cicely Mary Barker Saved Scalextric

 Recently, I was clearing out nonsense from our attic and came across something very precious indeed...

This is, of course, a letter from the tooth fairy, Fairy Primrose and dates from the late 1970s.

Now, when I told Mr Walker what it was, he gave me a look that I am very familiar with - It was the look of a man who really doesn't want to point out how odd my family is, but he married into it so really, it's his own fault. As far as I was concerned, as a child, the tooth fairy was called Fairy Primrose and when I lost teeth, I sent her a little letter along with leaving the tooth under my pillow.  Occasionally, she would write back.  Before you all point out the obvious, yes I am very much aware that it was my father who wrote the letters (although he denies it to this day) but the reason they are from Fairy Primrose was because I absolutely loved Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairy books. 

This post feels familiar as we will be treading similar ground to my post on Kate Greenaway and to a lesser extent Edith Holden, the Edwardian Lady of Diary fame, covering how I inadvertently absorbed Victorian culture in the 1970s and '80s childhood.  I'm not saying that is why I am the way I am today, but it might answer some questions.  It also makes me feel like I need to write a book on all the pieces of Pre-Raphaelite influence that crept upon us in the latter part of the twentieth century. Today's subject is the originator of my good friend Fairy Primrose, Cicely Mary Barker, and how she ended up saving the beloved toy manufacturer, Hornby.

Cicely in pursuit of fairies, in a boat

Let's start with Cicely, born in 1895 in Croydon, which doesn't fill me with visions of fairies (apologies to Croydon). She was the daughter (and granddaughter) of a seed merchant so it can be guessed that there might have been a fair amount of plants around the Barker home. As a child, Cicely had epilepsy and was too delicate to attend traditional school with her sister Dorothy (who was 2 years her senior).  Instead, little Cicely read and drew at home, until her father enrolled her at Croydon Art Society in around 1908, together with a correspondence course on art. In the Mitcham Advertiser in 1909, there is a report of a Miss Cicely Barker winning 1st prize for an outdoor sketch in a children's art competition in Epsom.  She went on to win an honourable mention at the 1910 Art Society show with her still life, aged only 15, and again the following year with a water-colour of a figure.

First edition of Flower Fairies of the Spring (available on Abebooks)

The Croydon Times was a supporter of Cicely from the start, posting in 1924 how she was a young writer and illustrator to watch, after the success in 1923 of her first book Flower Fairies of the Spring. There were certain elements that came together for this winning formula which was to make her name and keep her a household name for over a hundred years.  Firstly, and most simply, after the death of her father in 1912, Cicely, her mother, her maternal grandmother, and sister Dorothy all lived together at 17 The Waldrons in South Croydon where Dorothy ran a school. This gave Cicely an inexhaustible amount of child models to be her little fairies. Secondly, in 1917, two little girls in Cottingley, Yorkshire, got hold of a camera...

Frances Griffiths and Fairies (1917)

There wasn't an universal belief in fairies, no matter what some accounts tell you, however in a world rather ravaged by war and a pandemic, I think the public wanted a bit of a distraction and so fell for Fairy Fever. In the newspapers that reported on the photographs, a decent amount of scepticism about the 'alleged "fairies"' (Leeds Mercury, December 1920) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyles "Evidence" (Shipley Times and Express, 1922).  However, the sheer amount of enjoyment that the public obviously got from the whole tale shows that Cicely was pushing on an open door. According to the beautiful Flower Fairies collection published in 2016 by Frederick Warne, Cicely was not only deeply religious but also a lover of the Pre-Raphaelites and wanted to keep her fairies as close to nature as she could manage. She travelled to Kew Gardens to find the right plants to sketch, and I think the joy of her work lies in the fact that her plants are wonderful studies and highly realistic, lending a sort of verisimilitude to the little poppet with wings beside it.

In 1924, Cicely published Spring Songs with words and pictures, together with music for the songs by Olive Linnell (1880-1957). Flower Fairies of the Summer naturally followed in 1925 and was welcomed by an enchanted public. When Autumn followed, the books began to be sold as sets, and each was accompanied by Olive's music.

For more on Olive, see this lovely page.

Just a note, but I was delighted to see that in the 1921 census, Cicely is recorded as an artist.  It makes such a difference. Onward to the 1930s, and throughout 1930 the Kent Tuesday Express published a fairy poem every month in their newspaper.  This was an interesting move, as Cicely wasn't a Kent resident (I think she was living in Surrey which I grant you isn't far) but I think it was a reflection of how broad the appeal of the poems was, aside from the images. We tend to think of Cicely as a painter who wrote some words to accompany their art rather than an illustrated poet, but maybe we should think of her the other way round? By 1931, children were acting out the fairy poems as entertainment. At the Rose Hill Wesleyan Church in Derby, children between 2 and 10 years old performed as part of the bazaar. A year later in the Dundee Courier, an Easter party for children was reported to contain the 'Spring Songs' by Cicely and Olive, performed by the Ogilvy family, including Lord and Lady Ogilvy.

In 1933, Cicely was praised for the release of her book A Little Book of Rhymes New and Old, which includes poems by Shakespeare, Blake, Lamb, Keats, Coleridge as well as Lewis Carroll and Walter de la Mere, with numerous illustration and twelve colour plates and released just in time for Christmas. The same year, she also released the Little Picture Hymn Book, containing three dozen hymns illustrated but without music (presumably already known to the reader). 1934 saw the release of the Flower Fairy Alphabet and it is clear that Cicely had become a household name for safe, charming entertainment, perfect for gift-giving and, no doubt, Sunday School prize-giving.

In 1939, Cicely, Dorothy and their Mum all appear together on the pre-war register, still living in the school-house in Croydon, although Dorothy had retired. The same year, Cicely held an exhibition of her holiday sketches of landscapes, at the Craft House in Reigate. She also exhibited some sketches of children but I noticed that added to these were some of the original sketches for the flower fairies, which were not for sale. I wondered if she had to include them to guarantee an audience, like a musician who always has to play their most famous song. 

The Primrose Fairy (1923) Cicely Mary Barker

The 1940s were not financially kind to Cicely, who wrote in the Daily Express that due to the colour printing in her books, she did not earn very much money from her high sales, some years earning less than £200 (which equates to around £8000 in today's money), bearing in mind that she was the only bread winner in the house of three women before the introduction of the Basic State Pension in 1948. The only one of her paintings in a national collection comes from this period and contains no fairies at all...

Out of Great Tribulation (1948)

This is the sort of thing I would expect to see in the little Bibles we were given as children, but also makes me think of the mural in this church after the Great War. She also decorated panels for St Andrew's Church in Croydon, which are still there today. An interesting move she made in the 1950s, possibly to diversify her income streams, was a portrait of General Sir Ernest Cowell, as reported in the Croydon Times in 1952.  Sadly, I can't find a copy of it because I'd love to see what she made of him.

CMB in older age

Cicely's mother died in 1950 and Dorothy followed in 1954.  Cicely designed stained glass in memory of her sister for the now-demolished St Edmund's at Pitlake (really useful page here) and until the end of Cicely's own life in 1973, she remained in the public consciousness as the flower fairy painter. At her death, people knew who she was and there was renewed interest in her works which fitted perfectly into the floaty 1970s, with the Blackie Publishing group slipping them into Christmas offerings alongside modern things like Topsy and Tim. The books grouped nicely with Kate Greenaway and all things Victorian, skipping neatly into the 1980s, where sets of prints were advertised to hang in your child's bedroom (no doubt on their 'apple white' walls).  The Stratford and Avon Herald advertised flower fairy presents from 30p for Christmas with jigsaws and a birthday book being favourites.  It seems inevitable that someone would think of turning them into dolls but it is who and what happened next that is surprising.

In 1984, toys for boys ruled the marketplace, mainly because boys tended to collect things whereas girls had a doll or toy that could have small accessories (or furniture etc) added on special occasions. This changed with the introduction of My Little Pony which was the biggest selling toy of that year, making girls' toys rule for the first time since Sindy's heyday in 1979, sparking a girl economy revolution. Big sellers included Palitoy's Care Bears, Poochie from Mattel and Charmkins from Hasbro, all of which were American properties, so British companies scrambled to create their own whimsical lines. Hornby, based in Margate in Kent, were famous for their trains but with the growth of home video games, heirloom toys like the pieces they offered were falling from fashion and so they diversified not into other boy toys, but towards girls with things that were more ephemeral.  They created Pound Puppies (small soft collectable dogs), but also, in 1984, just in time for Christmas, a range of flower fairies...

The Suffolk and Essex Free Press were effusive - 'The magical world of fairies has captivated and delighted millions of children all over the world for countless years.  Now this make-believe has come true with the introduction by Hornby Hobbies of an enchanting range of exquisite dolls and flower costumes, which, with an extensive range of accessories, creates an exciting dimension in imaginative play...' The range started with six fairies; Guelder Rose, Heliotrope, Almond Blossom, Sweet Pea, Narcissus and Pink, standing around 6 1/2 inches tall with joints at the head, shoulders, slant waist, hips and click knees.  They were marketed on their pose-ability, making it easy for them to be placed in 'life-like' situations and posed like Cicely's pictures.  Soon the fairies were joined by more, plus a home, a garden and a fairy pool (with real working shower!) and animals to ride, giving the variation into cuddly toys. They were priced around £3.50 each (translating to around £12.50 now, which is not bad as the average Barbie is nearer £20) and it easily competed with Cabbage Patch Dolls for the 1985 Christmas market.  This was partly due to Hornby's full commitment to the brand of Flower Fairies and making it a success.  They allowed further diversification on behalf of Cicely's estate into bags, boxes, soap, clothes and pomanders which in turn provided marketing for the dolls.  The Christmas of 1984 brought Hornby £1.7m in revenue.

A 1985 music box

Blackie jumped aboard the resurgence of the brand in time for the 60th anniversary of the original titles and reissued the books for £2.95 each in hardback with full colour dustjackets, or £11.95 for a boxset.  This was March 1985, after which The Bookseller reported, Blackie Publishing planned to spend around £15k on the production of a range of point of sale materials for bookshops, which they showed off at the London Book Fair that Spring.  This included window display stages, cut out fairy figures, window stickers, posters and leaflets which would be sent out to bookshops that placed an order over £150. Looking to Christmas of that year, Blackie had great plans to produce different adaptations of the books and send them all over the world as the foreign rights market were clammering for fairy fever, with the biggest market being Japan.  Japan had at this time just exported its own Victorian themed toy, the ever popular Sylvanian Families, so went wild for the dolls, although the Bookseller ended on a rather racist note about changing the fairies faces for foreign markets, and the rather odd statement 'Let us hope Cicely Mary Barker is settled comfortably in her grave.'

Hornby saw boys return to trains and unlike some of its other British competitors, it flourished.  By 1986, Pedigree had given Sindy a disasterous rebrand then passed her over to Hasbro (I remain devastated) and Palitoy had ceased as a British company and vanished, as noted in the New Socialist (don't tell me I'm not flexible in my sources).  Hornby's very British face, its factory in Kent and the success of both its boy (trains and Scalextric) and girl toys was a source of industrial pride.  Not only that, the interest it all created led to the publication in 1985 of A Regency Lady's Fairy Bower by Amelia Jane Murray (or Lady Oswald as she was also known (1800-1896)), published for the first time 90 years after her death with obvious links (and reference in the reviews) to Cicely's work.

Not only that, but the success of one lady illustrator's work as a doll emboldened Hornby to create a second line based around Mabel Lucie Attwell's Boo Boos. Unfortunately, they did it like this...

Well, that is just haunting, but if you would like more visit this page.

Hornby's Flower Fairies have been named one of the last British girl dolls, which is hard to argue with and Hornby's fairies continued until 1989.  Hornby put their hopes in their fashion doll Cassy, a seven inch supermodel who loved horses and disco and would rival Barbie.  Sadly, she did not.

Candytuft figure, c.1999 available on eBay

The Flower Fairies persevered and became the domain of aunts and grandmas, existing in delicate, beautiful little statuettes for your mantlepiece, and decorative plates.  The books remain ubiquitous, proof that in England on sunny afternoons, fairies will be swinging off your begonias (not a euphemism). The Woodland Trust produced a range of enamel brooches that supported their charity, and Cicely M Barker and her fairies have been absorbed into the national consciousness, like Peter Rabbit and Paddington Bear, somehow saying something about our character, our dreams and values.  The reason I find things like the flower fairy dolls fascinating is that, years after their creation and the death of their author, these characters live on as things children can hold in their hands and create more stories and rhymes about.  This is even more true of the fairies than of Pedigree's Kate Greenaway terrifying moppets, as they are so tactile and endearing.  I made the mistake of buying an assorted lot for tuppence on eBay and now our house is crawling with them.

Honestly, this one is no help at all, but is everso cute...

So, in conclusion, Victoriana in the 1970s and 1980s is fascinating and possibly you could argue that it is no coincidence that these debutted the same year as the big Tate exhibition on Pre-Raphaelite art. Also, the introduction of toys like these, like the Kate Greenaway dolls and even Sylvanian Families opened my generation back up to all things Victorian, which for older generations were seen as unfashionable. I know I have readers here who are in their 70s and 80s (even 90s) who love all things 19th century, but my dears, you are in a minority and anyone who was taught art history in the 80s and 90s will remember being told how awful everything in the UK post-Turner was. There must be more in the way of toys that embraced the Victorian aesthetic and I will continue my hunt. I found the comment that Cicely would not be easy in her grave with all that monetising of her work, but honestly, I think she would have been delighted, only sorry it hadn't happened earlier.  The idea that artists and authors aren't commercial creatures is a rather privileged one, considering Cicely's letter about her finances.  I like to think that because of her little fairies, she saved Scalextrics and the fortunes of one of the few remaining British toy companies, which everyone should thank her for.

The Lady Landseer

There are some artists who were so famous in their own lifetimes that I feel a bit of a fool writing about them.  With my normal subjects, I start scratching about, gather as many twigs of their lives together as I can, then attempt to make a narrative of it. However, with the occasional artist, almost completely overlooked these days, I open a cupboard and immediately get crushed by a deluge of information, pictures and biographical articles. All this leaves me wondering - what exactly is the process that leads to us forgetting a celebrity?  And does the gender of that celebrity play any part in their disappearance? Say hello to Miss Maud Earl...

Maud Earl, c.1904

I've wanted to write about Maud for ages now but every time I thought I'd found out everything, I just kept finding more. For context, I started writing this up in March!  The balancing act I have is not telling you absolutely everything (we'd be here forever and you'd get a bit bored) but just all the things that will coherently tell her story.  Let's have a go then, and also see if we can find out why Maud has slipped from our collective memory, before we obviously try and shove her back in. I'll start right at the beginning with Maud's dad, George Earl (1827-1908), a sportsman, dog fancier (I could have phrased that better) and talented artist...

Pug with a Freemason Collar (undated) George Earl

He was an early member of the Kennel Club of Great Britain and a very popular dog painter, although admittedly it was a crowded playing field. He found getting into the Royal Academy a little tricky, managing it finally in 1857 but it might be his subject matter that hindered him.  As those who did the Open University A102 will remember, there is a hierarchy of artistic subjects with history at the top and still life at the bottom. If he had put the pug in uniform and called him Nelson he might have done a bit better, but I digress. 

In 1862, George married Alice Rawlins, daughter of a coach builder, and a year later, on 26th March 1863, along came their daughter, Alice Maud, who became known as Maud to save confusion with her mother. Interestingly, there is a bit of a pause in the story as no siblings followed and  in 1870, Alice Snr died, aged only 31. For the 1871 census, Maud is living with her grandfather, which I found odd but it might have been because her father was off getting married again. Even more interestingly, wife no.2 was the sister of wife no.1.

For goodness sake, did the Don't Marry Your Wife's Sister's Marriage Act mean nothing?! I found the casualness of the remarriage to Frances Rawlins at Trinity Church in Marylebone astonishing, seeing as Holman Hunt lost friends over his marriage to Edith Waugh and John Collier had to scamper off to Norway to marry Ethel Huxley in 1889. There was nothing in the newspapers and George was a fairly well-known painter at this point so I am a bit baffled.  Either way, a veritable fountain of babies followed, providing Maud with siblings - Francis George (1872-1944), Thomas Percy (1874-1947), Hubert John (1876-1878), Edith Margaret (1878-1949), Hilda Florence (1880-1962) and finally Sydney Beaumont (1881-1946).  I am impressed that, apart from poor Hubert, the rest made it to the 1940s and Hilda made it to a very impressive 1962.

Red Deer: Early Morning (1884)

By 1881, the newly reformed Earl family were living at 21 Newman Street in a household that included Grampy Coach Maker and three servants (you know I'm servant obsessed).  Although the census didn't give much away, I'm guessing that Maud was studying art because in 1884 she made her Royal Academy debut with Red Deer: Early Morning which the Banffshire Journal described as 'a good Highland landscape.' This was followed by her first RA dog picture in 1886, Old Benchers...

Old Benchers (1886)

I was especially grateful to the Field magazine for a description of this one as I didn't have a clue what I was looking for.  They reported that they had never seen a liver and white foxhound they didn't like and this extended to Maud's picture of foxhounds on their benches. They wondered if Maud had visited the Surrey Kennels for her models, but then complained that the picture had been 'skied'...

A Private View at the Royal Academy 1881 (1883) William Powell Frith

Now, we will hear this word a lot (spoiler alert), and it means that the picture is hung up at the top as opposed to 'on the line' or eye-level (which is buy-level).  As you can see from the famous Frith image of the RA, the paintings go right up the wall in order to fit in as many as possible (a custom I am delighted we don't do now as it is ridiculous).  It is interesting that in 1887, when Maud's painting In the Drifts was hung sky-high again, the Queen magazine pondered that, had Maud been an Academician, it would have been hung on the line. Being a woman, that wasn't even an option (Laura Knight being the first one in 1936, Annie Swynnerton being an Associate in 1922) so there is no question that being a woman was a disadvantage.  Even John Bull, not exactly the most feminist of publications, announced that Maud's painting being skied was a travesty - 'if we had not seen it before we should not have known that it is the finest study of animals in the exhibition.'

In the Drift (1887)

By the 1891 census, Maud was living in Little Burgh in Banstead, where the Asda petrol station stands now, according to this handy history (which mentions George but not Maud). I keep forgetting how much younger her siblings were, but although Maud was 28 in 1891, her nearest sibling, Frances, was only 18.  Notably, in the same census, staying with the Earl family was Lilian C. Smythe, the same age as Maud, and who moved with Maud to Bloomfield Studios, Bloomfield Place in Pimlico somewhen before 1895. 

A Cry for Help (1895)

1895 saw Maud's return to the Royal Academy and her inclusion in the illustrations booklet, which is quite a notable thing (if you remember this post). I found the gap between her 1887 painting and 1895 to be unexpectedly sizable but she did exhibit in the meantime in places such as the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colour's exhibition 'Royal Female School of Art' in 1893.  The Graphic viewed Maud's entry Waiting for Orders to be one of the most important pictures on the wall. 

The Dog of War (1896)

1896's RA saw an interesting image entitled The Dog of War, showing a shepherd dog trained by the German army to locate wounded soldiers, just as he has found this one by the side of a gun carriage. It is possible to see a bit of a pattern forming in Maud's work, as she obviously liked a dog in a bit of a perilous situation, illustrated again in 1897 with Farthest North: The End of the Expedition...

Farthest North: The End of the Expedition (1897)

This painting came with a quote from Kipling to heighten the drama of it all as our poor husky is left all alone in the snowy wasteland. I hope he has eaten the explorers. Infuriatingly, I can't find an image for 1898's The Last of the Expedition, because the description given by the Queen  magazine is this - 'an Esquimaux harnessed to his dead companion in a sleigh in dismal Northern regions is a most suggestive story of starvation and disaster.'  Well, that sounds awfully like 1897's RA entry, so I was wondering if you were allowed to send a painting in more than once or if she just loved painting doomed explorers and 'Esquimaux' dogs. 

Dogs of Death (1900)

The new century saw Maud's most intriguing work to date, Dogs of Death, which caused a sensation at the RA.  The Echo called it 'really dramatic' - 'they pass through the gloomy forest like shadows of evil and you feel them both awesome and uncanny.'  The picture depicts a Scandinavian legend of how these mystical dogs would chase the human souls through a celestial forest.  The Field called the picture 'weird looking' but admired the samoyedes - 'Their character and coats are well painted, and the attitude of the animals, some of which are baying, has been carefully studied; but they seem too fat and well nourished for animals of the kind.' Let's not fat-shame the Dogs of Death...

On Dian's Day (1901)

Maud's last RA outing was On Dian's Day, explained in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News with a quote from the RA catalogue - 'The legend runs that on the day sacred to Diana, her hounds - the rough Cretans and slender Laconians - sought her forest shrine (adorned with her flowers, the poppy and dittany) to pay their homage.' In the 1901 census, Lillian Smythe and Maud were living in Bloomfield Studios in Belgravia, very nice indeed.  I'm not in the business of outing people, but a fair number of the lady artists I research remain single and alone (if they don't shack up with their equally spinster sisters), so I'm glad that Maud and Lillian found a meeting of minds as Lillian seems to have done some interesting work. In a 1898 edition of the Nursing Record, there is an advert for a set of etchings Lillian had done of various hospitals which you could buy for a guinea (signed on vellum, thank you very much). She also seems to have produced a book on the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau and, more relevantly, a book on Pekingese dogs.  I wonder if that is how the pair met? Anyway, I digress.

1901 was the year that Maud hit the big time as this photograph from a lengthy article in The Sketch attests. The fluff piece praised how resourceful and skilful Maud was, and how gently quirky she could be, taking tea with her furry models and going off on walks with them so that they were used to her and would behave in the studio.  This was often a difficult task as they were so easily distracted and even the most flighty human model was not known to spring up and chase a postman.  She said that she would sometimes paint a dog to please its owner, but sometimes to please herself and it was generally acknowledged that this 'Lady Landseer' had a special way with canines. Their chief praise was due to Maud's growing reputation with royal dogs, having painted the new King's pug, the Duke of Leeds' greyhounds and everything else from mongrels to pedigrees, all with the same care and attention.  The piece also praised her intellectual pursuit of the subject, her studies of the skeleton and skin and her ability to name every bone in a dog's anatomy. Interestingly, the piece ends in a slightly cryptic manner.  After saying that Maud holds 'decided and highly illuminating views on art and artists,' the reporter bemoans that they lost the opportunity to record them 'by incautiously displaying my notebook. Miss Earl's spontaneous talk may be graven on the tablets of the mind, but must not be recorded in black and white.' What on earth does that mean?! I like to think that Maud lists the members of the Royal Academy who she could take in a fight but then adds 'yeah, but don't write that down, I want it to come as a surprise!'

Poodles and Cards (undated)

Maud continued to be a royal favourite, also painting the King's fox terrier Caesar in 1905 and holding many solo exhibitions of her work that appealed to not only the artistic crowds but also the hunting-shooting-fishing set, with prints of her work readily available for the public to buy. By 1911, she was living alone at 8 Elm Tree Road, Marylebone, which appears to back onto the Lords Cricket Ground. She had a butler and a housekeeper, a married couple, looking after her, which gives you an idea of her wealth, but thing were about to take an interesting turn. By 1916, Maud had packed up and moved to America.  In some accounts, she left after feeling that the world she had loved had been ruined by the war, but it could have been that she felt no ties to London anymore and so wanted to pursue a new artistic scene, especially if her style of art was falling from fashion (although I think the link between fashion and money is somewhat overstated, as we have seen in the case of J W Godward). Anyway, Maud left Liverpool for New York on the ship, the Lapland, in October of 1916 and apart from some visits back occasionally, lived out the rest of her life on the other side of the Atlantic. 

Borzoi Heads (undated)

I love her pictures on the plain backgrounds as they remind me of Whistlejacket (1762). Maud continued to pop up in the newspapers, most notably when she illustrated John Galsworthy's book on his spaniel, Chris.  In a way, I wonder if her lifelike and expressive portraits of animals were immune to 'high' art judgements, so didn't suffer from being unfashionable as they were almost photographic.  The Illustrated London News showed Maud's studio on Fifth Avenue in New York in 1923, with her bird panels in a Chinese style, together with a gold panel painted for Miss Theodora Wilbur of her Pekingese and two Japanese spaniels. Also featured was a mural from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Atlantic City from the 'Cockatoo Room'. Her murals, in the form of decorative panels became known as 'Maud Earl panels' and she went on to produce many others, including a gold one of Miss Elsie de Wolfe's Pekingese. I wonder therefore if America gave Maud the chance to find female patrons with money and dogs, especially decorative lap dogs which she seems to have really enjoyed painting. What is apparent is that in 1910, Maud had over 200 mentions in the newspapers, but by the 1920s, she is lucky to have reached 100 mentions for the entire decade. That said, she was still known to the public and in 1943, when she died in New York, her death was noted in the newspapers, although only in one sparce line.  It was the middle of the war, so I'm guessing people had other priorities. She died at 23 East 74th Street in Manhattan on 7th July 1943, leaving only £23 in her probate in England (I'm guessing she had more money in America), and is buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Westchester County. Many thanks to Wikipedia for this image of her grave...

So, can we blame her relocation for her subsequent anonymity? There is a big slice of that, as the newspaper reports attest, her fame declining sharply from 1910 to 1920, but I think the act of forgetting Miss Maud Earl happened the moment no major national collections bothered to buy her works.  There are 6 pieces on ArtUK  and, forgive me, none of them are her really important pieces.  It could be that many of them are in private hands still, which is always an obstacle to a museum holding or even thinking of a retrospective.  It could also be her subject matter - as I said above dogs are not seen as the highest level of art (my apology to all dogs reading this) and so her work, although glorious, is not valued in the same way as even that of horses.  I likened her borzoi picture to Whistlejacket, a mainstay of the National Gallery's collection, yet where is Maud? Reading the absolute overabundance of information on how awesome Maud Earl was, it seems frankly criminal that she is not in the narrative of British art, especially as she reflected that very human quality, our love of dogs. Could you argue she would have been more famous now if she had been a man? Not sure as Briton Riviere is hardly a household name, but she is the 'Lady Landseer' (who is definitely still a household name) so is it because she was a woman? I hate to fall back on it but yes, probably that doesn't help, not to mention that she left and died abroad in the middle of a war. You know I'm going to call for a retrospective immediately as I don't want the Victorians judging us for forgetting one of the most interesting animal artists our country has ever produced.

Review: May Morris Designs

 May Morris seems to be having a bit of a moment.  Not only is she the subject of various exhibitions (especially this one, wombats ahoy!) but I was delighted to be sent a new book on her work to review...

I'm always at home for Miss Morris and so the arrival of a book concentrating on her talents is a very welcome addition to my library. I concede that she can occasionally be overshadowed in light of her father's all conquering presence in the Arts and Crafts scene (not to mention literature) but just because her father was spectacular, doesn't mean that May didn't move the world herself, especially when it came to embroidery.

Westward Ho! (1885) Jane and May Morris

She was undoubtedly a brilliant practitioner, but it was design that May felt was 'the very soul and essence of beautiful embroidery,' which is where I feel that May should be credited with elevating the art of needlework. Early in her career, May was praised in reviews of her work as being an authority on the subject of embroidery as well as a writer, designer and actual practitioner. May's approach to her work, thorough and intellectual as well as artistic, is demonstrated in her pieces that echo with previous eras in their style, colours and choices. She began writing on the subject from 1888, aged only 26, continuing until after the First World War. Her contribution to the Art Needlework movement, a guidebook to decorative needlework published in 1893, was powerful and displayed not only her desire to create but also to help others create.

Within Lynn Hulse's new book, we can see where May's talent and passion came from.  There is not only her father's work, but also that by her mother Jane and her aunt, Elizabeth Burden, who was also instrumental in her artistic education. It is clear that the individuals that all contributed to May's needlework built an individual who not only could produce beautiful work but also explain her process. For May, a good piece was built by the choice of colours, the invention in the choice of stitches, suitable materials and good design based on historical and non-western ornament, with a good dose of nature thrown in. She contended you could have a brilliant design and get away with not brilliant stitches but even the most perfect needlework couldn't save a bad design.

Bed-Hangings (1917) designed by May Morris

Lynn Hulse's book gives some fascinating detail in building a picture of May's journey to expert. On her 20th birthday, May received John Gerard's The Herball (1633) filled with line-drawn plants. It is easy to speculate on the influence this must have had on her work (not to mention her father's) with the depiction of nature as both realistic and artistic in the same breath. I was interested in the term 'non-western ornament' but Hulse looks at the opening up of Japan in the 1850s and the impact that had on the artistic life of England. There is description of the Middle Eastern textiles that the Morris family used in their home and which provided inspiration for the family. I also found May's comments against 'truth to nature' very interesting as she disliked some artists tendency to just 'copy some spray or bough directly from nature' rather than to design it, creating balance and rhythm within the space.

Autumn (1894) May Morris

I was aware of some of May's works, I've seen them in books and exhibitions, but concentrating on just her designs shows you exactly how many pieces she produced, not to mention their richness and complexity. Not only that, but May's wisdom on things like dying threads with natural dyes, such as madder and indigo, proved a revolt against the modern and synthetic. Mind you, despite romancing the past, there are definite aspects of May's work that foreshadow the future with hints at Art Deco, for example in this bag that May and her sister Jenny made for William's Medieval Psalter...

May Morris Designs is a glorious book which illuminates not only May's professional and artistic life but also the history of Art Embroidery and its importance. The talent and time that went into these pieces that deify household items shows how art can be domestic and the every-day household can be elevated to a masterpiece. Hulse's book shows that May was a force to be reckoned with in terms of her intelligence and dedication to not only her own work but encouraging and enabling others to produce beautiful work too.  In that spirit, at the back of the book (and on the website) there are some of May's patterns to use in embroidery of your own, which I will defintely be giving a try.  Come on, let's make May proud...

May Morris Designs: The Essence and Soul of Beautiful Embroidery is available now from the Ashmolean and all good bookshops now.

Come on, Feel the Noyes

 Occasionally, Mr Walker, in his infinite wisdom, will say to me 'what do you know about so-and-so?' Now, normally I can give him something, after all these years we have been doing this nonsense, you and me both will have heard of an awful lot of artists.  However, on occasions, I must quietly admit, I come up entirely blank.  These are the moments Mr Walker give an evil chuckle as he knows he won't hear a word out of me until I know everything and he at least will get a bit of peace and quiet for a change.  So, thanks to Mr Walker, here is a post on Theodora Joan Noyes...

Portrait of a Lady in Black (c.1900)

Theodora, or Dora, Noyes (1864-1960) was the twelfth and last child born to Samuel (1820-1890) and Charlotte Noyes (1820-1896). Samuel was a solicitor, so I'm assuming they could afford the large family and a surprising number of the children lived very long lives. After Samuel and Charlotte's marriage in 1845, their offspring were Charlotte jnr (1846-1929), Harry (1848-1917), John (1849-1864), Mary (1851-1949), Edward (1853-1921), Charles and Frederick (1854-1877, yes, we'll come to that), Herbert (1855-1879), Katherine (1858-1930), Robert (1859-1923) and Margaret (1863-1949), followed finally by Dora.  John died in his teens, and the twins and Herbert in their early 20s, but I was surprised by how some of the sisters lived into their 90s.  I'm always blown away by how much must have changed in their lives, for example Dora was born before Rossetti met Alexa Wilding and by the time she died, we were headed for the moon. Flipping heck! I digress. Let's start from the beginning...

Dora was born in Harrow-on-the-Hill in Middlesex, just outside London.  The family seem to have lived in London for a while with the eldest children being born in Belgravia and Mayfair (which tells you how wealthy they were) before moving out in around 1849 to the village of Harrow-on-the-Hill. The family seems to have moved around a bit more, all to very nice addresses, before moving back to Hanover Square in Mayfair in time for Dora to attend the Lambeth School of Art.

Students drawing from a model at Lambeth (c.1910)

There is a very helpful piece on Lambeth in the Every Woman's Encyclopedia from around 1910, which reports that Lambeth School of Art opened in 1860, built on the site of the old Vauxhall Gardens and by the time Dora attended in 1880, there had already been the likes of Charles Shannon and Stanhope Forbes as pupils (although Shannon might well have been there around the same time as Dora). Dora received the third grade prize and the book prize for drawing from life but also excelled at lace work, embroidery, spinning and weaving. She also attended art academies abroad, including a spell in Paris, as well as the RA school. I have to admit that the majority of the information I have about her early life comes from her obituary as, despite being very successful as we will see, she kept a distinctly low profile. I actually learned from that excellent publication Building News that Dora won a medal from the Royal Academy of Art school for drawing of a statue or group and £10 for a drawing of a statue or group executed within the year in the Academy.

Just a pause in her career here to point out that although Dora was only one year old when her brother John died in 1864, she was 12 when the twins Frederick and Charles died within 2 weeks of each other, which must have been a massive shock. I was hoping for some illumination in the newspapers but there is nothing so I'm guessing it was either a shared illness or one died and the other died of a broken twin heart. This was followed 2 years later by the death of a third brother, Herbert, over in Admedabad in India. He had been a Captain in the 10th regiment of the BNLI and died of cholera.  By the 1881 census, brother Edward was in the Ceylon Civil Service, with Harry working as a solicitor like his Dad and Robert as a solicitor's articled clerk, all very legal.  None of the daughters had any sort of occupation apart from being a wealthy man's daughter, nice work if you can get it. Moving on...

Dora debuted at the May Royal Academy exhibition in 1883 as Miss Dora Noyes of West Hill, Southfields, exhibiting two paintings, An Old Fatalist, an oil painting and A Study in the etchings, drawings and engravings gallery. The next year she was back with another oil, Phillis. At this point, me and Dora are going to have a little chat as when she returned to the RA in 1887, she was listed as Miss T Noyes in the index (not helpful), having moved to Trafalgar Studios in Chelsea, showing Noonday. This was the piece that got her attention, as the Magazine of Art reported  'a good study of a peasant girl somewhat in the manner of Mr Clausen is shown by Miss Theodora Noyes ... Here the modelling is not so sound as the drawing, but the colour is very pleasing and the landscape is broadly presented and cleverly subordinated to the figure.'

In 1889, Dora is listed as living at 18 Finborough Road and that year she had three oil paintings in the RA's May exhibition, Sea Poppies, Santa Lucia and The Year's At The Spring. Despite this splendid effort, she garnered absolutely no press whatsoever. We're also a bit early for those everso helpful books of pictures which are on Archive.org, so we'll have to wait a few more years for her not to appear in them either. Her 1890 RA paintings were Miss Noyes which I'm guessing is one of her sisters, and The Old Miniature, again neither of which I have to give you, but I'm wondering if the former remained in the family.  

A Rest by the Wayside (Resting at the Gate) (1891)

A year later, she was back with three more paintings; A Rest by the Wayside, Mrs Cecil St John Mildmay, and Autumn Pastures. She also appeared at the Dudley Gallery in the exhibition of the New English art club with Poppies, which the Queen magazine called 'delightfully clever' and the Illustrated London News praised for its splendours and difficulties. Her painting A Rest by the Wayside also sold for £31/10s, the equivalent of around £2,500 today. The Lady's Pictorial praised its excellent qualities being 'very well drawn and natural in action.' The Bath Chronicle likewise praised the painting recognising its modern French influence.

A quick note about her family situation, as both Samuel and Charlotte snr had died by this point, meaning that in the 1891 census Harry had become the head of the house, with sister Mary (living on own means) and Theodora (Sculpt. Artist), all living on Warwick Street, Belgravia (actually alarmingly close to Piccadilly Circus and so it looks like a hellscape these days, no doubt still horrifically expensive.)

Two at a Stile (1894)

In the autumn of 1892, Dora exhibited "I was a Stranger and ye took me in" in Liverpool (shown again in 1893 at the RA), described as being a scene where an elderly couple find a faint girl clinging to their wall. The RA exhibition of May 1893 also included Hayraking, and Summer-time but the narrative piece was definitely the star of the show. Similar to Rest by the Wayside, her 1894 painting Two at a Stile also was popular choice at the RA, due to the quiet narrative of the rural couple and their possible romance.  She also had Apple Trees and A Hedonist in the May exhibition but it was the couple and the stile that got the press interest. Dora moved out of London to Salisbury in Wiltshire during 1894, listing her address in the 1895 RA catalogue as Milston, just outside Salisbury in Wiltshire.  Here she was inspired to paint Wiltshire Weeds, one of paintings in the RA that year, as well as a portrait of a child, Hester. 

Interestingly, her 1896 RA entry Miss Gina Goldingham received absolutely no press coverage that I can find and I don't know who Gina was, which also might have contributed to the lack of interest. Likewise, despite having two paintings in the RA in 1897, The Enchanted Hour and Peace, the press were disappointingly quiet, which is a shame as I really want to know what The Enchanted Hour was all about. However, in 1898 she exhibited a painting called The Queen's Jubilee, I'm guessing for Victoria's Diamond Jubilee the year before, which the Black and White journal declared to be one of their pictures of the year. The end of the century also began one of the reasons why Dora has been overlooked as an artist - she became a very accomplished illustrator. 1899 saw the publication of Frith and Allen's The Science of Palmistry, which can be viewed here. 

The Silent Life (1900)

In 1900, Dora showed The Silent Life at the Royal Academy, which the Lady's Pictorial called 'quiet and effective'. It reminds me very much of Charles Collins' Convent Thoughts or Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale's image of Guinevere in her nun garb. I think it is likely it was inspired by her eldest sister Charlotte who had become a Sister of Mercy at the All Saints Convent in St Albans. Dora was back in 1901 with a portrait of the children of someone called Rex Howell, but she was also illustrating her sister Ella's book on the Saints of Italy. The Scotsman's verdict was 'Thus the Old Masters are interpreted for the young misses, and the Golden Legend suitable alloyed for the practical purposes of spirited commerce in a pious nursery.' May all your nurseries be pious...

Illustration of the Palazzo Il Moro from The Story of Ferrara

Briefly, Dora moved down to Torquay and in 1903 exhibited Miss Jane Helen Findlater who may be the novelist Jane Findlater who worked with her sister, much like Dora and Ella. The following year, Ella and Dora published The Story of Ferrara (which you can see here) As it is quite difficult to find the sisters at this point on census, I wondered if they were travelling in order to research their subjects.  In 1905, the sisters produced another 'travel' book, The Casentino and its Story, which was marketed as a half-guinea colour book.

Ella and Dora's books were the source of the majority of the press that Dora received as she seems to have turned her back on the London art scene. Their follow up was much closer to home with the publication of Salisbury Plain: It's Stones, Cathedral, City, Villages and Folk in 1913...

Haymakers from Salisbury Plain (1913)

The Pall Mall Gazette praised the work, including Dora's 'altogether charming' illustrations and concluded their review with 'This book is one which calls for no stint in praise.'

I find it interesting when researching these posts that you can see how the newspaper mentions start to dwindle after a certain point, only to revive on the death of the subject for a brief moment.  In a way, it can be quite sobering to see how someone has a moment of relevance, of note, then slips from the collective memory.  Dora continued to live with her sisters Mary and Ella, and a couple of servants, in Sutton Veny in Wiltshire, where she would live out her life. By 1921, only Dora lists an occupation in the census, that of artist, while Ella replies that she is not occupied for a living. By the 1939, all sisters are listed as 'living on own means.' A decade later, Margaret and Ella died within weeks of each other which reminded me of the twins, leaving Dora alone.  Margaret died at 98 and Ella at 85, and when Dora died in 1960, she was 95, fondly remembered in the local press as one of the oldest inhabitants of Sutton Veny. Her probate amount was a very respectable £22,406.

A Ploughing Scene (1895)

Arguably, Dora lived a long time without being famous, having all but given up work before the First World War, so maybe it is understandable that she was all but forgotten by the time of her death in 1960.  One problem that Miss Dora Noyes has is living and working for a large part of her career in London, which as we know from this post, does you no good at all. If you are a RA artist from a small town, or even a city outside London, the local press will make a massive deal about you. Dora received mentions for some of her pictures but the sheer quantities she was submitting really deserved more notice. The alternation of her name between Dora and Theodora might seem petty but when it becomes Miss D Noyes and Miss T Noyes you can see how people might not have realised it was the same person.  She also has no paintings in national collections, which probably hinders her rediscovery because if Mr Walker had not said 'have you ever heard of Dora Noyes?' I probably would not have looked her up either.  Mr Walker found out about Dora via an auctioneer.  It was a shrewd contact as Merton Russell-Cotes went out of his way to collect female artists (if I was being cynical, because they were cheaper) so she would be a perfect fit for the collection but I fear Miss Noyes and her ilk get stuck in between being exceptional quality, so worth £50K but not being well known enough to attract that initial interest. Hopefully that will change as what little work we have access to is so beautiful that  it would be nice to see some more.

While we merrily gallop to celebrate female artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Dora Noyes reminds me that we have to be able to see them before we can cheer for them and like Dora, I bet there are so many more amazing painters who are waiting, unseen.

Miss Mab Paul is Too Good at Kissing

 I seem to begin every post at the moment with 'This is going to be a bit ramble-y/cross' but I promise I'm not intentionally in my Grumpy Era.  However, saying that, this one is going to a bit ramble-y and grumpy. Sorry in advance.  I'm also writing this in order to sort out how I feel about the use of young girls in art. Yikes.

Look Out! Teen Knockers Alert! (Allegedly)

I'm sure we all remember the 2018 controversy over the removal of Hylas and the Nymphs (1896) by John William Waterhouse from the walls of Manchester Art Gallery.  Depending on who you believed, it was due to the objectification of women (crikey, there will be nothing left on the walls of most museums that this rate!) or raising awareness of how young the models were (without any actual proof that the models were young or not acting with what agency they had etc etc) or just because they fancied a shufty round of some paintings and a bit of controversy is always fun. Well, while I roll my eyes at most of this because it is a crap way to have a conversation, I was particularly miffed that we can't seemingly have a nuanced conversation about Victorians and woman/girls without imposing what we think we know all over it.  Also, this is not a good painting to use if you want to tak about women/agency/girls stuff etc as it is literally a painting of a bunch of girl-sprites about to murder a bloke because they can, and they suffer absolutely no repercussions at all.  Yay! Girl Power! I do beg your pardon, how very naught of them.  Anyway, I think there is a conversation to be had about how we view art works and more essentially the men who paint them, and possibly a good place to start is Miss Mab Paul...

Mab Paul (c.1905)

As you can see from this postcard of Miss Paul, she was an actress at the turn of the 20th century, hence my interest in her. However, before there was Mab Paul, there was Mabel Hall, artist's model, hence my very great interest in her indeed. Mabel was the third daughter of Richard Hall and Frances Paul (hence the adoption of 'Paul' as her stage name).  Richard and Frances had married in the late 1870s and were comfortably middle class, showing up in the 1881 census living in Kensington, Richard engaged as a Verger. For some reason (no doubt ecclesiastical) by the time Mabel was born in 1882, the family were out in the colonies and little Mabel entered the world in Uttar Pradesh in India. The family had returned by 1887 when Richard jnr was born (in London) and Daddy Hall had moved from the clergy to running a club of some sort. He was also a Chelsea Pensioner, so I'm not entirely sure I can work out his working life at all, but the family all seemed to do okay, and during the 1890s Mabel and her elder sister Edith (b.1878) had become artists' models. I'm going to ease you in slowly, as it gets a bit dodgy. Let's start with John Collier...

The Laboratory (1895) John Collier

Mabel is 13 years old. The painting was fairly well received, although it was felt by some newspapers to be a bit old-fashioned.  Mabel was referred to as the 'fair visitant" purchasing poison (according to The Gentlewoman) or the 'imperious beauty' who wishes to kill her rival (according to the Evening Star).  So, how do we feel about 13 year old Mabel? Hold that thought...

Lady Godiva (1897) John Collier

Have we all done our maths?  Good.  This is 15 year old Mabel (I'm being generous as I'm guessing this was painted when she was 14) naked on a horse. The Coleshill Chronicle called the painting 'frigid and prosaic' which is a bit rude. The London Evening Standard saw that this Lady G was very young, which is something, and they felt that she was charmingly painted, but no-one raised the question whether or not this child should have been naked on a horse in the first place.

The Prodigal Daughter (1903) John Collier

Also, John Collier gives us Mabel in a very dramatic piece.  Aged 21, Mabel is the prodigal daughter, returning to shock her parents in her frankly awesome dress. I wonder if this was a response to the fact that Mabel had indeed taken to the stage by this point, but I'll come back to that as Mr Collier wasn't Mabel's only employer...

Mabel Hall and Ethel Warwick (c.1899) Edward Linley Sambourne

I came across Mabel first when looking at Ethel Warwick's time with Edward Linley Sambourne.  I obviously wanted to know more about this girl that Ethel posed with. Ethel and Mabel were the same age, both 16-17 in this image.  I have chosen my images carefully for this bit, as I will explain.

Mabel Hall (1900) Edward Linley Sambourne

I have such complicated feelings about Sambourne and his photographs.  I must at this point say that the staff at Sambourne's house are amazing and have been no end of help with my investigations into Ethel's time with Sambourne.  I do need to tread very carefully and pick my words.  To start with, Mabel began modelling for Sambourne in January 1899 when, as he wrote in his diary, she was 16 years old, 'very elegant' and 'very tall'.  According to the excellent catalogues Public Artist, Private Passions, Sambourne (born in 1844, so just shy of 40 years older than Mabel) was definitely smitten by his teen models, although he did them no harm that we know of and provided these working class young women with a safe and comfortable living.  I have a lot of questions about the Camera Club in London, founded in 1885, as the majority of Sambourne's naked teen images are taken there.  Also, the above image of Mabel on her own is one of a pair where she is naked in exactly the same pose. I also have questions about why he needed images of the girls naked in the same poses as when they were dressed.  Don't say it is for artistic reasons because we all know it isn't.

Mab(el) in 1902

Like many of Sambourne's girls, Mabel did not remain long in his employ, and like Ethel Warwick, she headed for the stage.  Mabel Hall became Mab Paul, and whilst posing for Sambourne in 1900, she was also treading the boards in Plymouth, selling chocolates at a charity performance at the Theatre Royal. By 1902, Mab had a beautiful full page photograph in The Sketch (above) for her role in Ulysses at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, which also appeared in Tatler. Collier actually painted 'Mab Paul' in 1901 while she was performing in Beau Austin in Henley...

Mab Paul (1901) John Collier, from the Tatler

My favourite review of Mab's acting is from The Stage in June 1902 when she appeared in the comedy Lord of His House.  Whilst the paper liked Mab's performance, they felt that she might 'wisely tone down the kissing...young women may act so, but I think that a gentleman of refinement would want to back out if he found that the young lady who a moment before was "Miss Jones" is permitting him to kiss her décolletée, shoulders and giving hearty busses on the mouth.' Well, that's us told.  Sorry Mab, you are just too good at snogging.

Mab, c.1910

A bit like Ethel Warwick, Mab made her way over to Australia to perform around 1910, and remained there until at least 1916 when she seems to have vanished.  I am currently waiting for a couple of books on Australian theatre of this period, but if anyone has any knowledge about how there was seemingly such an easy transition from the West End to Sydney, I'd be delighted to have a chat.  A few people seem to have her death date in the 1930s but as I don't know if she married, I can't find that out. I hope she had a long and happy life, but knowing my luck probably not. However, what we can say is that her career began at 14 and her experience as an artist's model, no matter how young, enabled her to progress into the theatre.

Mab, in the Sporting and Dramatic News, 1903

So, I think my point is we need to have a nuanced conversation about girls in art. I feel very differently looking at Collier's Lady Godiva and one of Sambourne's nudes, but should I? Especially when you consider that Collier was drawing a literal schoolgirl for his naked lady (she was at Honeywell Road School in 1895) whereas Sambourne does not seem to have employed a girl below 16. Both Collier and Sambourne were much older than Mabel and were producing works that would be consumed by older men, so should we feel protective? Arguably, Collier's art output was entirely for public consumption, but how do we know?  We only know that Sambourne took and kept the nude images independent of his cartoons because there is an archive of them. If we are outraged and remove a painting just because a girl is 14 years old, we are ignoring the fact girls worked in the adult world at 14.  My grandmothers were both working away from home at that age, most probably in jobs that paid less than what Mab was getting from Messrs Collier and Sambourne.  I think my point is that a 14 year old working-class girl had agency to earn money and by hiding paintings, historians are indulging in benevolent sexism, wishing to protect girls who arguably do not need protecting. As far as we know, Sambourne, creepy though I find him, did no-one any harm.  The exploitation that Collier, Sambourne or their ilk indulged in was entirely intellectual - the girls had no say in the way their image was used (or abused) after it was taken, but I very much doubt that either of these men considered what they did to be exploitative.  If Waterhouse (to go back to the ravenous nymphs) really did pay a bevy 14 year old girls to pose naked in a duck pond for his painting, he was paying them.  They could equally be paid possibly less money to work long hours in physically exhausting conditions. At least no-one got an arm ripped off in a loom while posing as Lady Godiva.

Mab in Ulysses, 1902

So, in conclusion, we need to separate our modern sensibilities from the realities of life as a working class person in the nineteenth century when looking at the art of the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers.  To remove a painting off a wall because you feel the subjects are being exploited is negating the work of those girls who received a wage for their time.  Just because you feel squeamish seeing a 14 year old naked, it doesn't mean you get to cover up the agency she had to go out their and earn her money.  Also, branding every male artist that employed a 14 year old model as some sort of predatory animal is also problematic.  We can talk about the power imbalance, we can talk about how uncomfortable it makes us feel, but in the end we should admit that how we feel doesn't have supremacy over historic reality and young female agency. One thing is for certain, shoving it in a cupboard isn't going to help.