Cat with a White Front

1904–1914

Ten years of devotion to Rodin: thousands of letters

Her devotion to Rodin, the most famous artist of his time and 35 years older than her, continued unabated for the next ten years, as documented in her thousands of fervent letters to him. Given to fierce attachments to both men and women that were sometimes disturbing to them, she was eventually kept at a distance by Rodin, despite his genuine feeling for her, through the use of concierges and secretaries.

1910

Her patron John Quinn begins buying her work

The American collector John Quinn, from 1910 until his death in 1924, purchased the majority of the works that Gwen John sold; his support freed her from having to work as a model and enabled her to devote herself to her work. He also helped to organise the 1913 Armory Show in New York, in which one of her paintings was included.

1910

Moves to Meudon

In 1910 she found living quarters in Meudon, a suburb of Paris, where she would remain for the rest of her life. In the same year she made the only two etchings known by her.

1911

Stops exhibiting at the New English Art Club

In 1911 she stopped exhibiting at the NEAC; she took part in exhibitions fairly regularly, but her perfectionism produced in her a marked ambivalence toward exhibiting. In that year she wrote that she painted a good deal but seldom got a picture finished: that required a very long time of a quiet mind and never thinking of exhibitions.

c. 1913

Received into the Catholic Church

As her affair with Rodin drew to a close she sought comfort in Roman Catholicism and around 1913 was received into the Church; her notebooks of the period include meditations and prayers, and her desire to be “God’s little artist” and to “become a saint”.

17 February 1913 – 19 May 1913

Exhibition: Armory Show