Mary Sargant Florence

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Sargant Florence (1920s)

Mary Sargant Florence (born July 21, 1857 in London , † December 14, 1954 in Twickenham , Sussex ) was a British painter, author and feminist.

Life

Mary Sargant studied fine arts in Paris with the academic painter Luc-Olivier Merson and at the London Slade School with Alphonse Legros . In 1888 she married the American musician Henry Smythe Florence (1864-1892), went with him to the USA and gave up British citizenship. After her husband died by drowning, she returned to England with her children. She became a British citizen again around 1910. In Marlow , Buckinghamshire , she built her country house "Lord's Wood" in the current Arts and Crafts style and lived there until 1940. In Lord's Wood, Mary Sargant often housed members of the Bloomsbury Group during the summers , including Lytton Strachey , Maynard Keynes , Virginia Woolf , Ralph and Frances Partridge (1900-2004) and Dora Carrington .

She was a member of the New English Art Club and the Society of Painters in Tempera .

Mary Sargant-Florence was a suffragette and in 1915 a member of a commission of the Hague Peace Conferences . Together with Charles Kay Ogden, she published a pamphlet on militarism and feminism , which appeared anonymously in 1915. The book proposes that feminism and militarism are closely interwoven: the more militaristic a society, the lower the status of women.

Artistic work

In addition to portraits and landscapes in watercolor, tempera and pastel chalk and advertising posters for the suffragette movement, Sargant Florence created large-format frescoes in the Old School in Oakham , Rutland (around 1909–1914) and in the Bournville School near Birmingham (1912– 1914). The job in Oakham was brokered by her brother, who taught at Oakham School. The story of Gareth is depicted from the Arthurian fabric.

family

Mary Sargant was the sister of the British sculptor Francis William Sargant (1879–1960). She was married to the American musician Henry Smyth Florence, with whom she had two children. The son, the economist Philip Sargant Florence (1890-1982), was married to the psychoanalyst and feminist Lella Secor Florence (1887-1966), the daughter Alix Sargant Florence (1892-1973), with the psychoanalyst James Strachey , with whom she Translated Freud's works into English.

Fonts

  • Militarism versus Feminism . London: Allen & Unwin, 1915. Full text
New edition London: Virago-Press 1987, ISBN 0-86068-782-1 .
  • Color Co-ordination . London: John Lane 1940.

literature

  • Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin: The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture . London 1964.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sharon Ouditt. Fighting forces, writing women: identity and ideology in the First World War , Routledge, 1993 ISBN 0-415-04705-6
  2. ↑ Sharon Froese Nielsen: Militarism versus Feminism: Writings on Women and War. In: Book Reviews. Vol. 9. No. 1. 1987.
  3. ^ Christine Poulson: The quest for the Grail: Arthurian legend in British art, 1840-1920. Pp. 68-69.
personal data
SURNAME Florence, Mary Sargant
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British painter, author and feminist
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1954
Place of death Twickenham , Sussex