Female Gaze | Gwen John and Kaye Donachie

Gwen John Autoportrait à la Lettre, (Self-Portrait with a letter), c.1907-9, Pencil and Watercolour, Musée Rodin

Two interconnected shows opened at Pallant House Gallery on May 13, both in their different way concerned with what might be described as ‘the female gaze’.

Of the two, the first major retrospective of Gwen John’s work for 20 years – Art and Life in London and Paris - will certainly get the most attention. Hung in the contemporary wing of the gallery, it has been curated by art historian Alicia Foster, who has written a Gwen John biography of the same title, published by Thames & Hudson to coincide with the exhibition.

Foster was at hand at the press preview of the show to explain the thrust of her curation: she wishes to dispel the myth that Gwen John was a recluse, by placing her work alongside that of her contemporary associates, suggesting that in fact she lived rather a full and active life across two culturally thriving European capitals. There are pieces, for example, by her friend Walter Sickert, her lover Auguste Rodin, her brother Augustus John and Eduard Vuillard.

One reason for John’s ‘reclusive’ reputation was that she had a penchant for painting interiors, and Foster points out that she was far from alone in doing so in the fin-de-siecle period (think Vuillard, think Bonnard). She also painted numerous portraits of women – some identifiable friends, others anonymous models – which is where the real strength of the show lies. Her subjects are dignified and even, on occasion, defiant: there is a clear communion between sitter and painter. The palette is muted. Nobody smiles.

After WW1 John painted a series of portraits of seated women, often holding cats, collectively known as The Convalescent, capturing the recuperative zeitgeist of the era; several of these conclude the show, along with a series of pictures of nuns painted after the artist’s late conversion to Catholicism. Is there a Modernist bent to these paintings, with their simple form, and restricted palette? The Pallant House literature suggests there is. These sombre sisters sit rather incongruously alongside a bigger-than-life-size reproduction of a photograph depicting a naked John in Auguste Rodin’s studio, presumably taken by the French sculptor: we are back at the beginning of the show.

Simultaneously displayed in the townhouse section of the Chichester gallery is Kaye Donachie, a contemporary Glasgow-born painter, represented by Maureen Paley, who was also present at the press opening. There is a display of 20 or so of her works, largely closely cropped female head-and-shoulder portraits, inspired by archive monochrome photographs of avant-garde 20th-century women, who are never named (the titles are gleaned from extracts of poetry, by the likes of Emily Dickenson). The pieces are romantic in tone, painted in a palette of pastel pinks and blues and greens. Many of them have flushed cheeks, suggesting vulnerability; again there is a communion between artist and subject, though in this case imagined.

Tying both shows together are two rooms in the contemporary wing, displaying works from Pallant House’s 5,000-strong collection chosen by Donachie (including one of her own pieces, Monotonous Remorse, acquired by the gallery in 2020). There are paintings by Keith Vaughan, Glyn Philpot, Edouard Manet, and Suzanne Valadon, among others. Our highlight, and perhaps the strongest thread between the two shows, is a remarkable life-size three-quarter portrait by Sickert, entitled Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies in ‘The Lady with a Lamp’ (1932-34), depicting the artist’s actress-friend portraying Florence Nightingale on the stage. Sickert, it turns out, never saw the show, and probably painted the picture from a (monochrome) photograph; whatever the case, its subject looks delighted, if a little surprised, to have been released from the gallery vaults.

 Gwen John, Art and Life in Paris and London | Kaye Donachie, Song for the Last Act, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, until October 3.