Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale: Last Days

"The Little Foot Page"
by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

"Though Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale remained creatively active well into her sixties, the sense of decline if not closure expressed in her complaint of 1927 that 'Pre-Raphaelitism is no longer wanted', is echoed in a large painting she embarked upon in 1929 in which she assembled colleagues, friends and relatives in the benign presence of Mary the mother of Jesus. In valedictory manner, they each embody a different century, from the first till the present) which is represented by the banner each holds up and made clear by their period costume. Letters to her brother Charles, who figured in the composition, show that it was a self-imposed task, for which the artist did not expect to find a buyer. Be that as it may, it found a home as an altarpiece for the Kensington church of St. George's, Campden Hill.

In 1938, Fortescue-Brickdale suffered a stroke that ended her painting career for the remaining seven years of her life. She died on March 10, 1945, and was buried at Brompton Cemetery, London. In the edition of The Times of March 14, 1945, the following obituary appeared [excerpted here]:

'A Versatile Artist. Miss Fortescue-Brickdale RWS, painter, modeller, and designer of stained glass, and black and white artist died on March 10th as briefly announced in our columns yesterday. She was the last survivor of the late Pre-Raphaelite painters, who though – or possibly because – they did not come into personal contact with the original Brotherhood, carried some of their principles to extremes. Her nearest affinity was with the late Byam Shaw, and she was at the height of her reputation about the same time as he.

It was the allegorical side of Pre-Raphaelitism that Miss Fortescue-Brickdale inherited, and her work was distinguished by brilliance of colour and great fidelity to detail... She deserves to be remembered for her consistent fidelity to the tradition."

(Excerpts from "A Pre-Raphaelite Journey: The Art of Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale" by Pamela Gerrish Nunn and "The Times," March 14, 1945.) 

 

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale: Illness

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale illustration
for "Book of Old English Songs & Ballads"

"Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, now fifty years old, fell seriously ill in the early 1920s. In June 1923 a friend's diary records, 'Bricky is better but her hands are still bandaged', while in September another friend recorded, 'Isn't it dreadful about the bad time poor Eleanor has been having? She is so good and patient but she has masses of work to do and can't touch a pencil'. In December the commissioners of an altarpice heard from Charles Fortescue-Brickdale that 'his sister is slowly recovering from her long illness and hopes to resume work in January'. As it was she spent the last part of 1923 convalescing at Amelie les Bains, the Pyrenean spa town.

As a consequence of this illness, as yet unidentified, Fortescue-Brickdale's sight began to deteriorate, leading her to favour larger-scale work rather than the finely worked watercolors in which she had specialized. An altarpiece was commissioned for the Chapel of Remembrance in the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924, and was followed by another triptych, entitled 'Knightly Service,' for the Winchester College for boys in Hampshire. 

Her last solo 'coloured book' appeared in 1925 with twelve plates by the artist, whose choice of texts allowed her to shift her attention from the medieval, which had so occupied her over the years, to the Jacobean and Carolingian. This modest amount of pictorial content probably reflected her capacity to work on fine detail since her illness. 

Though the late 1920s brought a marked decrease in Fortescue-Brickdale's exhibition appearances, these years saw a number of her window designs realized in churches large and small around the country. These included the sad mission of commemorating the younger of her two brothers, John, who had died in 1921 and two other members of the congregation of his church."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "A Pre-Raphaelite Journey: The Art of Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale" by Pamela Gerrish Nunn.) 

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale: Artwork at the End of WWI

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale illumination for Queen Mary

"Dealing with the war experience took various forms, and Fortescue-Brickdale was commissioned to create a kind of testimonial on it when various women's organizations employed her to create an illuminated address to Queen Mary, with a symbolic painting of women war workers to mark the royal couple's silver wedding in mid-1918. 

The immediate post-war time was also busy for her. She had resumed some of her previous duties at the Byam Shaw school in the 1918-19 academic year, judging the drapery and antique drawing prizes and taking classes in Composition and Illustration. His unexpected death in 1919 must have added considerably to the strain of these responsibilities, which continued until the end of 1923, when Brickdale herself became severely hampered by illness. She also took over Shaw's production of monthly posters for the Maternity and Child Welfare Department's magazine, producing over a dozen black-and-white designs.

Memorials to individual victims of the war were also in great demand even before it was over, and Fortescue-Brickdale's readiness to design for stained glass led to commissions from the bereaved amongst her patrons, including her most effective sculptural work, a memorial to the war dead of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. The vocabulary of knights, angels and saints that she had deployed over the years seemed fitting to these clients for mourning and celebrating the rude loss of English servicemen which cast a shadow over Britain at that time. In the 'teams' of sacred figures she devised for her patrons - the three archangels Raphael, Michael and Gabriel who represent Hope, Comfort and Consolation; St. George, St. Nicholas and St. Joan of Arc: Chivalry, Fortitude and Faith - the heroic and the humble were combined to render the 'supreme sacrifice' more bearable."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "A Pre-Raphaelite Journey: The Art of Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale" by Pamela Gerrish Nunn.)