# Evelyn De Morgan

Evelyn De Morgan (30 August 1855 – 2 May 1919) was an English painter associated early in her career with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, and working in a range of styles including Aestheticism and Symbolism. Her paintings are figural, foregrounding the female body through the use of spiritual, mythological, and allegorical themes. They rely on a range of metaphors (such as light and darkness, transformation, and bondage) to express what several scholars have identified as spiritualist and feminist content. Her later works also dealt with the themes of war from a pacifist perspective, engaging with conflicts such as the Second Boer War and World War I.

## Early life

She was born Mary Evelyn Pickering at 6 Grosvenor Street in London, England, to Percival Pickering QC, the Recorder of Pontefract, and Anna Maria Wilhelmina Spencer Stanhope, the sister of the artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and a descendant of Coke of Norfolk who was an Earl of Leicester.
De Morgan was educated at home; according to her sister and biographer, Anna Wilhelmina Stirling, their mother insisted that "from the first Evelyn [was to] profi[t] from the same instruction as her brother." She studied Greek, Latin, French, German, and Italian, as well as classical literature and mythology, and was also exposed at a young age to history books and scientific texts.

## Personal life

In August 1883, Evelyn met the ceramicist William De Morgan (the son of the mathematician Augustus De Morgan), and on 5 March 1887, they married. They spent their lives together in London, visiting Florence for half the year every year from 1895 until the outbreak of WWI in 1914. Evelyn De Morgan supported the suffrage movement, and she appears as a signatory on the Declaration in Favour of Women's Suffrage of 1889. She was also a pacifist and expressed her horror about the First World War and Boer War in over fifteen war paintings including The Red Cross and S.O.S. In 1916, she held a benefit exhibition of these works at her studio in Edith Grove in support of the Red Cross and Italian Croce Rossa.
For the first half of their marriage, De Morgan used the profits from sales of her work to help financially support her husband's pottery business; she also actively contributed ideas to his ceramics designs. The De Morgans finally achieved financial security in 1906 after the publication of William's first novel, Joseph Vance.
De Morgan and her husband were both spiritualists, and De Morgan’s sister and biographer A. M. W. Stirling credits them as the anonymous authors of a 1909 publication of automatic writings — communications with spirit beings — titled The Result of an Experiment. The introduction to this book describes the couple as practicing automatic writing together every night for many years of their marriage. Since precious little primary material in Evelyn De Morgan’s own hand has survived, this text provides important information about her faith and her approach to a range of issues—from her understanding of ultimate reality to her belief about the role of art in capturing spirit. From the moment that de Morgan encountered spiritualism, her perspective seemed to change, and her works started to reflect more ideas about darkness and death. De Morgan used a range of motifs to represent spiritual ideas. A few examples are Renaissance angels, heavenly auras, a distinctive contrast between light and dark, and the symbolic use of colours. De Morgan used complex allegories to depict her social commentary and spiritual beliefs. The iconography in these works reflect several spiritual themes such as the progress of the spirit, the materialism of life on earth, and the imprisonment of the soul in the earthly body.
Evelyn De Morgan died on 2 May 1919 in London, two years after the death of her husband and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery near Woking, Surrey. Their tombstone bears an inscription from The Result of an Experiment: “Sorrow is only of the flesh / The life of the spirit is joy”.

## Career

De Morgan started drawing lessons when she was 15, and from the outset was dedicated to her craft. On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, she wrote in her diary: "Art is eternal, but life is short…" — "I will make up for it now, I have not a moment to lose." This diary, given up after a few months, reveals her devotion to her work. She records hours upon hours of "steady work," chastising herself for "wast[ing] time" through daily tasks like going to tea and changing her dress. According to Stirling, De Morgan was interested in little other than painting and fought hard to be considered seriously as an artist. She rebelled against any efforts to turn her into an "idle" woman, and when her mother suggested she be presented to society, De Morgan rejoined: "I'll go to the Drawing Room if you like...but if I go, I'll kick the Queen!" Stirling recounts another incident in which De Morgan rejected further attempts to introduce her to society: "It was...suggested to Evelyn that she might like to go into Society and see a little of the world, but she jumped to a conclusion respecting this process which was clearly unjustifiable in her case. 'No one shall drag me out with a halter round my neck to sell me!' was her uncompromising rejoinder."
In 1872, she was enrolled at the South Kensington National Art Training School (today the Royal College of Art) and in 1873 moved to the Slade School of Art. At Slade, she was awarded the prestigious Slade Scholarship and won several awards: the Prize and Silver Medal for Painting from the Antique; First Certificate for Drawing from the Antique; and Third Equal Certificate for Composition. She eventually left Slade to work more independently.
De Morgan was known to George Frederic Watts from infancy, and while developing as an artist she would often visit him at his studio-home, Little Holland House. She also studied under Watts's student, her uncle John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, who had a great influence on her visual style. Beginning in 1875, Evelyn often visited him in Florence where he lived. This enabled her to study the great artists of the Renaissance; the influence of Quattrocento artists like Botticelli is especially visible in her works from this point onwards. After this period, De Morgan's art began to move away from the more traditional, classical subjects and style favoured by the Slade School towards a development of her own particular, mature style. Through Stanhope, De Morgan also developed friendships with Pre-Raphaelite painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. She was also friendly with other key figures in the Victorian literary and artistic world, like writer Vernon Lee.
De Morgan first exhibited in 1876 at the Dudley Gallery and then a year later at the inaugural Grosvenor Gallery exhibition in London. She exhibited regularly until 1907, including a one-woman show at Wolverhampton Municipal Art Gallery and Museum in which 25 works were shown, including 14 for sale. After 1907, she stopped exhibiting regularly. E.L. Smith theorises that this was due to the financial security that came from the success of her husband's first novel, meaning she was no longer obligated to sell her paintings.
The vast majority of De Morgan’s works, particularly from the mid-1880s onwards, depict content or themes that can be described as broadly spiritualist. These themes arguably reach their peak in her later works like Daughters of the Mist (c. 1905–10), which use a Symbolist allegorical register to suggest their profoundly mystical content by suggestion rather than explicit declaration.

## Works

In August 1875, De Morgan sold her first work Tobias and the Angel. Her first exhibited painting, St Catherine of Alexandria, was shown at the Dudley Gallery in 1876.
In October 1991, sixteen canvases were destroyed in a fire at Bourlet's warehouse.
| Date | Title | Collection | Notes |
| 1870-1879 | The Angel with the Serpent | Private | |
| 1873-1875 | Medusa | De Morgan Collection | Gesso on panel with bodycolour |
| 1875 | Tobias and the Angel | | |
| 1875-1919 | Mater Dolorosa | Leighton House Museum, Kensington | Drawing |
| 1876 | St Catherine of Alexandria | | |
| 1877 | Cadmus and Harmonia | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1877 | Ariadne at Naxos | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1896 (circa) | The Crown of Glory | Private | |
| 1877–1878 or 1886 (circa) | Aurora Triumphans | Russell-Cotes Museum, Bournemouth | |
| 1878 | Night and Sleep | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1880 | Goddess of Blossoms & Flowers | | |
| 1880 | The Christian Martyr or The Martyr (Nazuraea) | Southwark Art Collection | |
| 1880–1881 | The Grey Sisters | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1882 | Phosphorus and Hesperus | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1882-1883 | By the Waters of Babylon | | |
| 1883 | Sleep and Death, the Children of the Night | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1883 | Salutation or The Visitation | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1883-1884 | Love's Passing | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1884-1885 | Dryad | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1885 | Luna | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1885-1886 | The Sea Maidens | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1887 | Hope in a Prison of Despair | | |
| 1888 | The Soul's Prison House | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1889 | Love, the Misleader | Private | |
| 1889 | The Soul’s Prison House | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1889 | Medea | Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead | |
| 1890 | Angel of Death | Private | |
| 1892 | The Garden of Opportunity | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1893 | Gloria in Excelsis | | |
| 1893 | Life and Thought Emerging from the Tomb | Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool | |
| 1894 | Flora | De Morgan Collection (on loan to Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton) | |
| 1895 | Eos | Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina | |
| 1895 | The Undiscovered Country | Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina | |
| 1895 | Lux in Tenebris | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1896 | Boreas and Oreithyia | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1897 | Earthbound | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1897 | Angel of Death | Private | Watercolour |
| 1897 | Blindness and Cupidity Driving Joy from the City | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1898 | Helen of Troy | De Morgan Collection (on loan to Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton) | |
| 1891 | The Bells of San Vito | Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton | Watercolour and gouache on paper |
| 1885 | Clytie with Sunflowers | Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton | Pastel on paper |
| 1889 circa | Medea | Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton | Pastel on paper |
| 1898 | Cassandra | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1899 | The Valley of Shadows | | |
| 1900 | The Storm Spirits | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1900 | Victoria Dolorosa | Leighton House Museum, Kensington | Drawing |
| 1901 | The Poor Man who Saved the City | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1902 | A Soul in Hell | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1903 | The Love Potion | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1904-1905 | The Hourglass | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1905 | The Cadence of Autumn | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1905 | Queen Eleanor & Fair Rosamund | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1905–1910 (circa) | Death of a Butterfly | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1906 | Demeter Mourning for Persephone | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1905 | Port after Stormy Seas | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1905 | The Hour-Glass | | |
| 1905-1910 | Sleeping Earth and Walking Moon | | |
| 1907 | The Prisoner | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1907 | Our Lady of Peace | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1909 | The Worship of Mammon (1909) | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1909 | William De Morgan | National Portrait Gallery | |
| 1893 | William De Morgan | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1910 (circa) or 1900-1919 | Daughters of the Mist | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1910-1914 | Evening Star over the Sea | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1910-1914 | Twilight | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1910-1914 | The Barred Gate | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1910-1914 | Night and Dawn | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1914-1918 | Death of the Dragon | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1914 | The Vision | Private | |
| 1914-1916 | S.O.S | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1915 (circa) | The Mourners | Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton | |
| 1914-1916 (circa) | The Field of the Slain | Clark Art Institute, Williamstown | |
| 1918 | Moonbeams Dipping into the Sea | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1918 | The Red Cross | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1901-1902 or 1908 | The Gilded Cage | De Morgan Collection (on loan to Watts Gallery, Compton, Guildford) | |
| 1870-1919 | Deianera | | |
| 1878 | The Kingdom of Heaven Suffereth Violence and the Violent Take It by Force | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1890-1919 | In Memoriam | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1915 (probable) | The Captives | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1900-1919 or 1918 | Moonbeams or Moonbeams Dipping into the Sea | Knightshayes Court | |
| 1910-1919 | The Passing of the Soul at Death | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1906 | The Light Shineth in Darkness and the Darkness Comprehendeth it Not | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1910-1914 | Sunbeam and Summer Shower | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1878 | Venus and Cupid | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1910-10914 | Boreas and the Fallen Leaves | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1875-1880 | Mercury | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1880 | The Angel of Death | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1880-1888 | The Little Sea Maid | De Morgan Collection | |
| 1880-1889 | 'Music Sweet Music (Saint Cecilia) | Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton | |
| 1870-1919 | Study of Hair on a Woman's Head | Ashmolean Museum, Oxford | Drawing |
| 1904 | Study for 'Saint Christina' | De Morgan Collection | |

## Gallery

* The Crown of Glory
* Helen of Troy, 1898
* Cassandra
* Cadmus and Harmonia
* Eos, 1895
* Hero Holding the Beacon for Leander
* Clytie
* Hope in a Prison of Despair, 1887
* Painting The Worship of Mammon, 1909
* The Gilded Cage, 1901-1902 or 1908
* Dryad, 1884-1885
* The Red Cross, 1918

## Collections

Her works are held in the De Morgan Collection, the De Morgan Museum at Cannon Hall, Barnsley, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the National Trust properties of Wightwick Manor and Knightshayes Court, the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and the Southwark Art Collection.