The Many Flowers of Evelyn Grace Ince

Occasionally in my research meanderings, I come across an artist who is not only talented but also not afraid to get out there and show her stuff. A little known fact about me is that before I was a rambling Art Historian, I was a rambling Poet who published her first (and no doubt most awful) poems aged 18. At the time I imagined I was Sylvia Plath.  Reader, I was not. However, through getting published in a minor literary magazine I got the courage to write other stuff and so here we are.  This all leads me to today's subject, Evelyn Grace Ince...

Miss Ince was born in 1886 in Bengal, India.  Her father, the Reverend John Cook Ince was Irish and her mother Sarah had been born in Bengal but sent back to England for her education, before returning to marry (in much the same way as the Pattle sister did, but they went to France). Sarah's father had been a missionary and tutor to the Sultan of Johor, so I wonder if it was religion that brought them together.  Anyway, they married in the April of 1865 and four daughters followed over the next 20 years - Eliza Gertrude (1866-1945), Mabel Emily (1870-1941), Alice Caroline (1873-1947) and last but not least Evelyn Grace (1886-1941).  As Sarah was well into her 40s at that point, I can only imagine that little Evelyn was somewhat of a surprise, twelve years younger than her nearest sister. By 1891, the family had moved to England, to the Isle of Wight to be exact, where they were living at Gloucester House in Northwood, apart from Sarah.  Somewhen between the birth of her youngest daughter and 1891, Sarah had died, leaving John a widower.  This possibly precipitated the move to England, the vicar and his daughters aged between 5 and 24 years old.

Autumn Harmony (no date)

By 1901, the family were still all together, now aged between 15 and 34. Reverend Ince was the vicar at Gurnard on the Wight and in 1901 a newspaper piece recorded how the Ince girls decorated the church, Evelyn dressing the windows. Evelyn had decided her future lay in the arts, in writing to be exact at that point and on 7th March 1903, she became an Associate Member of the Gentlewoman's Children's Salon where she won the Associate Prize for literature under the category of 'loneliness.' I would be remiss if I didn't publish the poem in full, obviously...

LONELINESS

Upon the pond's green mossy bank

There stood a goose sedate,

Gazing into its murky depths,

And thinking on his fate.

He thought on when, in bygone days,

They all were goslings fair,

And frolicked in that self-same pond,

Without a thought or care.

But one by one they'd disappeared

And never more were seen,

And he alas! was left alone,

To nurse his sorrow keen.

Thus musing on his loneliness,

He does not heed the gay

Whistle of Farmer Jones who comes,

And carries him away.

Now, although on the face of it, it's about a sad goose (not one of nature's more poetic creatures), it's also about death - the death of loved one and your own and how short life is so don't waste it.  Is the inference that the Farmer ate all his siblings and has finally come for Sad Goose? Farmer Death seems awfully chipper but it's nice someone is happy in his work, plus he has goose for dinner again. Let's move on from goose-base existential dread...

Mary Mary (no date, 1930s)

It appears that the Gentlewoman magazine liked to nurture the young writers and became an outlet for Evelyn's writing. In June, she received an honourable mention for her amusing verse about a cat. Evelyn wrote another piece and submitted it for feedback which she received via 'Levana's Letter Box' in September 1903 - 'Evelyn Ince - Very fair; in fact the plot is quite good, only you have not worked it out very well.' In the November she received another honourable mention in the Autumn competition, but she also began submitting art work, receiving an honourable mention for her design for a calendar as well as for her verse on Michaelmas Day. In 1904 she won for both art and literature and received feedback for her essay which Levana assured her was not nonsense and was decidedly original and clever.

Dorothea Bay MacGlagan (no date)

Thanks to a very helpful biography here, we know that in 1911, Evelyn applied herself very seriously to art and attended the Byam Shaw and Vicat Cole School of Art.  I can only imagine that she stayed in London during the terms and returned to the Wight for holidays, where she was caught by the 1911 census, listing her (and her sister Mabel) as artists in black and white. All the sisters were still single (and would remain so) and living at home with their father.  Evelyn remained at the school until 1916 when she became a Land Girl.

Landscape (possibly Tares) (1917)

1917 saw Evelyn's first appearance at the Royal Academy with Tares, described by the Gentlewoman as a 'fine landscape' showing a mass of thistles on a hillside in the evening light, 'a picture full of truth and solemn beauty.' Her address for the catalogue was 71 Campden Street, Kensington, but by her next appearance in 1921, she had moved to Meadow Cottage in Petworth, Sussex, where she is listed as 'joint head' of the household.  Her sister Alice is staying with her, and Mabel is still living with their father, so I wonder if Eliza, who is visiting elsewhere and working as a temporary Government Clerk, is actually the person who Evelyn was living with. Anyway, in 1921's RA she showed Echo and Narcissus. She also took Tares to the South Wales Art Society, where it was warmly received: 'There lurks a true spirit of poetry in Miss Ince's conception of her subject...Altogether a very charming composition.'

Echo and Narcissus (1921)

1923 saw Landscape appear at the RA and the Westminster Gazette listed Evelyn's painting in their 'good work by less famous artists' list. The West Sussex Gazette called it 'suggestive yet flatly treated.' She took Amberley Ruins to the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour in November of the same year and Spring to the Royal Society of British Artists. She got another mention in the 1924 Royal Society of British Artists exhibition, although it isn't mentioned for what picture, but for the 1925 exhibition she showed Evening in the Cotswolds which gave the reviewer 'quiet pleasure.' Interestingly, in 1926 at the Royal Society, she showed Stow in the Wold so I wonder if she had moved temporarily to the Cotswolds (and who wouldn't, Waitrose-adjacent), but by the 1927 Royal Academy she was living at 6 Willow Road, Hampstead, which is absolutely gorgeous and close to the Heath. She exhibited two flower paintings, one in oil, one in watercolour, which, looking at what illustrations were available to me online, seems to be what she is better known for now.

1928 saw Evelyn show one of her flower pieces in an exhibition aboard the Cunard Ship 'Berengaria,' which also appeared in the newspapers, as well as at various other exhibitions but not the RA. She ended the decade at an exhibition at the Walker Gallery, where a reviewer said her work made it clear that loveliness had not ended.

Bank Holiday, Hampstead (1930)

The 1930s were arguably Evelyn's best, or at least most successful, decade. At the Royal Society of British Artists in 1930 she showed a view of a Brittany village, and at the Society of Women Artists she showed a flower piece which was prized for its appropriate femininity. At the RA, she showed two more flower pieces, one in tempera and a view of Bank Holiday, Hampstead. At the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour, she showed Mother and Child which I would love to see as I think her figurative work is beautiful.

Hitchin Church (1930)

1931 brought another Gloucestershire view, this time Painswick, displayed at the autumn exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists. In 1932, it was a view of Hampstead at Whitsun (which I wonder was just the Bank Holiday picture from 1930 again) and yet more flowers. By 1933, she had moved to White Lodge, Meadow Way in Letchworth (very nice too, although most of the houses are white on that road, so I wondered if it was the first one along which seemed to be on its own) and at the RA she had three pictures - Harvest Field, Hitchen Church and a tempera flower piece.

Flower Piece (1934)

Now I'm going to get a bit cross. In 1934, Evelyn won the Chantry Prize, which means her picture, a tempera flower piece, was purchased for the nation and resides in the Tate. The above is the only image I can find online of it. This is arguably the most important work she did, or at least was deemed so, but the nation can't actually get digital access to it. Of the four works of art purchased by the Chantry Bequest, the other three are all available in colour on the Tate's website.  I wonder what the difference between those three male artists and Evelyn could possibly be? Hmmm...

Flowers in a Black Vase (1940)

Her tempera flowers continued to win hearts at the Royal Academy - the West Midlands Gazette declared them better than the oil paintings of the same year. In 1935, she also produced the dust jacket illustration for her sister Mabel's book The Preacher and Queen Mary bought one of her tempera flower studies. A piece in the Daily Mirror exclaimed 'Women beating men in the Academy, too!' as so many of the female artists, including Evelyn, had sold pieces of work from that year's exhibition. Her last few years were filled with tempera flowers, including a Stott Bequest winning piece, Flowers in a Black Vase in 1940. Her last piece, in 1941, was a tempera piece Dahlias which was exhibited at the Royal Academy the day before she died. Her sister Mabel died the week after on the 14th May. She left just over £2000 to Eliza, who died in 1945. Alice, as the last remaining sister, presented the painting of Hampstead at Bank Holiday to Hampstead Library before she also died in 1947.

First Garden City Gas Works (Letchworth) (no date)

So, why do we not remember Evelyn Grace Ince?  Well, for starters, flower painting is not valued at all. I was flippant about her Chantry not being photographed because she is a woman, but I bet if it had been something exciting and figurative, it would have stood a better chance.  Flower painting is predominantly a female field (no pun intended) and therefore is on a sticky-wicket to start with. Also, I don't think, as a society, we value flowers in the same way as our forebears did.  I bet my daughter doesn't even know who Costance Spry is and I've not passed down to her the basics of flower arranging (for shame!).  Maybe we need to embrace this lost art, and the love of the flower paintings would follow.  It's not like in Victorian times when each flower would have a meaning, it is just for the glorious aesthetic pleasure of the flowers, the shapes and colours. 

I'll fetch my oasis block...