EILEEN MAYO: SUPERSITTER
Laura Knight, Powder and Puff, courtesy of Kaye Michie galleryIt would be worth betting that the sitter for this painting, Girl with Powder and Puff, by Laura Knight, is none other than Eileen Mayo, an artist in her own right who earlier this year was given a retrospective show at Towner Eastbourne. This would probably date the painting to c1926-30, when Mayo regularly sat for Knight, as well as her husband Harold.
Compare the painting with other in-profile portraits of Mayo by the Knights (and numerous other artists, easily accessible online), and it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion.
Mayo had studied at Central School of Art, but the death of her father and emigration of the rest of her family in 1926 meant that she had to turn to modelling to earn her keep. She was nicknamed ‘The Golden Girl’ after the colour of her hair (a lock of which is in the Tate collection) and was famed for her distinctive features (strong straight nose, slightly downturned cupid-bow mouth, dark, expressive eyebrows).
Mayo was in great demand as a sitter, which is, perhaps, why her face is so instantly recognisable. As well as spending four working-holiday summers with the Knights in Cornwall, she posed for Dod and Ernest Procter, Bernard Meninsky, Duncan Grant, and Vanessa Bell.
But could this be an Eileen Mayo-alike? It seems unlikely, but Laura Knight was at that time noted for her paintings of real-live dancers and performers, sketched in their genuine behind-the-scenes working environments: another regular sitter was Anna Pavlova, in London for a period with Diaghalev’s Ballets Russes, and the artist went on tour with Bertram Mills and Great Carmo's Circus in 1929/30.
These were boom years for Knight, who did so much to pave the way for future generations of female artists. She was awarded a silver medal in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics (when there was a painting category in the Games); a year later she was awarded a Damehood. In 1936 she became the first woman to gain full membership to the RA since Angelica Kauffman in 1769. She continued her prolific career until her death, aged 92, in 1970. Mayo emigrated to Australia in 1952, and then on to New Zealand ten years later, developing a highly successful fine art and commercial art practice in a variety of media.
Kaye Michie Gallery will be showing works by Laura Knight at Stand 53 of the Fair, alongside pieces by Mary Fedden, Augustus John, Donald Hamilton Fraser, Josef Herman and John Piper.