ART & ARTISTS: 2021-09-12

An abstract and figure painter, Mainie Jellett started to take watercolour lessons as a young girl, later working under Sarah Cecilia Harrison and May Manning. She entered the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in 1914 while William Orpen was teaching there. Three years later she went to study at the Westminster Art School in London with Walter Sickert. It was there that she met Evie Hone who became a life-long friend. In 1920 she won the Taylor Scholarship and this money allowed her to travel to Paris with Hone where they worked in André Lhote’s studio. Here they got their first taste of Cubism, however, after a while they both decided to move into the realm of pure abstract painting and transferred to work with Albert Gleizes. On her return to Ireland, Jellett continued to visit him during the summer for the next ten years. In Dublin she gave painting lessons from her home and began to exhibit her cubist paintings which received hostile criticism from George Russell.

During the 1920s she exhibited regularly at the Dublin Painter’s Gallery while also showing at several exhibitions in Paris. Her art developed a greater realism in the 1930s and also became more religious in subject matter. She exhibited at the RHA from 1930 to 1937 while at the same time contributing to the Watercolour Society of Ireland until 1943. She became a leader in the modern movement in Ireland and joined the avant-garde group of painters, the White Stag in 1940, regularly lecturing and exhibiting with them. She exhibited in the first ever Irish Exhibition of Living Art where she had been appointed chairman but was unable to attend as she fell ill and died a short time later. Her works are in all the major Irish collections.

This is part 2 of 4 parts on the works of Mainie Jellett:

1928 Composition
gouache 28.5 x 42 cm

1928 Homage to Fra Angelico
oil on copper

1929 Abstract Composition
gouache 43.7 x 18.5 cm

1929 Composition
gouache on paper 29.2 x 34.9 cm

1929 Death of Procris
oil on canvas 67.5 x 117.5 cm

1930 Abstract
Hemisphere Crawford Art Gallery, Cork

1930 Composition
gouache 23.5 x 19 cm

1930 Painting
oil on canvas 76.2 x 91.4 cm

1930 Virgin with Angels
gouache 43.2 x 33 cm

1930 Winsor and Newton advertisement
Crawford Art Gallery, Cork

1932 Abstract
gouache 66 x 51 cm

c1932-35 Composition
oil on canvas 91.1 x 71.1 cm
Ulster Museum, Belfast

1933 Abstract Composition
oil on canvas

1934 Abstract Composition
gouache 39 x 18.5 cm

1934 Abstract Composition
gouache 32 x 40 cm

1934 Wave
gouache 53.5 x 38 cm

1935 Abstract Composition
Crawford Art Gallery, Ireland

1935 Abstract Composition
oil on canvas 119.5 x 96.6 cm

1935 Composition
oil on canvas 91 x 71 cm

1936 Painting
oil on canvas 121 x 69 cm

1937 A Man
oil on canvas

1937 Flower Form
oil on panel

1937 Study for a Woman
gouache

1938 Achill Horses
oil on canvas 91.5 x 66 cm

1938 Painting
oil on canvas 76 x 64.6 cm
Ulster Museum, Belfast

c1938-39 Design for "The Roof Garden"
gouache 26.6 x 40.6 cm

The Roof Garden was a play written by Andrew Ganly. It was produced by Olive March at the Actors Studio Theatre, Hammersmith, London, on 21 January 1938. This design by Mainie Jellett was subsequently made for the author to help him to get a Dublin production of the play in 1938/39.

1939 Achill Horses II study
pencil and gouache 22.2 x 36.9 cm

1939 Achill Horses
oil on canvas 61 x 92 cm
National Galley of Ireland

1939 Spring Madonna
study gouache 40 x 20 cm

1940 Adam and Eve
gouache 24.5 x 12 cm

1940 Study for Bog and Sea
gouache on paper 27 x 36 cm

1940 The Land Éire
oil on canvas 62.2 x 74.9 cm

1940 The Nativity
oil on canvas 89 x 89 cm

1940 Untitled (Abstract)
pencil and gouache 25.5 x 17.5 cm

1940 Western Landscape Study
watercolour 27.9 x 40.6 cm

1941 Hayfields (possibly Achill Island)
watercolour on paper 28.5 x 20.9 cm

1941 Landscape
watercolour 17.7 x 33.6 cm

1941 Looking across Lismore
gouache 21 x 25.5 cm

1943 I have trodden the wine press alone
oil on canvas 76 x 56 cm
National Gallery of Ireland

1943 The Virgin of Éire
oil on canvas 64 x 92 cm
National Gallery of Ireland

n.d. Abstract Composition
gouache 48 x 38 cm

n.d. Abstract Composition
gouache 30 x 23 cm

n.d. Abstract Composition
gouache 25.5 x 9.5 cm

n.d. Abstract Composition
gouache 23 x 11.5 cm

n.d. Abstract Composition
gouache 15 x 11.5 cm

n.d. Abstract Composition
gouache 12 x 23 cm

n.d. Abstract Composition (Pink and Aquamarine)
watercolour and gouache with pencil 22.5 x 17.5 cm

n.d. Abstract Composition (Holy Family)
gouache over pencil on card 20 x 22 cm

n.d. Abstract (design for a rug)
gouache 28 x 15 cm

Mary Harriet "Mainie" Jellett (29 April 1897, Dublin – 16 February 1944, Dublin) was an Irish painter whose Decoration (1923) was among the first abstract paintings shown in Ireland when it was exhibited at the Society of Dublin Painters Group Show in 1923.

Jellett was born on 29 April 1897 at 36 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, the daughter of William Morgan Jellett, a barrister and later MP, and Janet McKenzie Stokes. Her aunt was a pioneering woman doctor working in India, Eva Jellett.

Jellett's art education began at a young age, when she received painting lessons from Elizabeth Yeats, Sarah Celia Harrison and from Miss Manning who had a studio on Merrion Row, and whose influence on Irish Artists of the time was considerable.

She later studied at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin (her teachers included William Orpen, and his influence is apparent in her work from this period ) . Despite her artistic talent, she was still undecided about her future, and at this time was taking regular piano lessons with a view to becoming a concert Pianist.

Her decision to become a painter was made after working under Walter Sickert at the Westminster Technical Institute in London, where she enrolled in 1917 and remained until 1919. She showed precocious talent as an artist in the impressionist style. In 1920, she won the Taylor Art Scholarship worth £50. The same year she submitted work to the annual exhibition of the Royal Hibernian Academy.

In 1921, along with her companion Evie Hone moved to Paris, where, working under André Lhote and Albert Gleizes she encountered cubism and began an exploration of non-representational art. After 1921 she and Evie Hone returned to Dublin but for the next decade they continued to spend part of each year in Paris.

In a 1943 essay entitled 'Definition of my Art' Jellett describes her art has having three revolutions inspired by her teachers; the first credited to Walter Sickert, the second to André Lhote and the third to Albert Gleizes.

In 1923, she exhibited two cubist paintings at the Dublin Painters' Exhibition. The response was hostile, with the Irish Times publishing a photograph of one of the paintings and quoting their art critic as saying of them 'to me they presented an insoluble puzzle'. The following year, she and Evie Hone had their first joint exhibition.

A deeply committed Christian, her paintings, though strictly non-representational, often have religious titles and often resemble icons in tone and palate. In Irish Art, a Concise History Bruce Arnold writes that Jellett was an important figure in Irish art history, both as an early proponent of abstract art and as a champion of the modern movement. Her painting was often attacked critically but she proved eloquent in defense of her ideas. Along with Evie Hone, Louis le Brocquy, Jack Hanlon and Norah McGuinness, Jellett co-founded the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943. Jellett died on 16 February 1944, aged 46, of pancreatic cancer.

This is part 1 of 4 parts on the works of Mainie Jellett:

1912 Abstract No.4
gouache 21 x 15 cm
IMMA
(Irish Museum of Modern Art)

1912 Abstract No.5
gouache 21 x 15 cm
MMA Collection: Donation 2010, Bank of Ireland Art Collection, 2010

1914-16 Seated Nude
oil on canvas 91.3 x 61.2 cm
Ulster Museum, Belfast

1914-16 Still Life
oil on canvas 33.7 x 33.9 cm
Ulster Museum, Belfast

c1914 Nudes Dancing round a Fountain by Moonlight
oil on canvas 88 x 63 cm
National Gallery of Ireland

1915-18 Study of a Lady Wearing a Hat
watercolour on paper 19 x 15.5 cm

1918 Art School
ink on paper 24 x 18 cm

1918 Babbin and Betty, Fitzwilliam Square
watercolour on paper 25 x 22 cm

1918 Child and Cart, August 1918
watercolour 14 x 23 cm

1918 Portrait of a Woman
pencil on paper 18 x 19 cm

c1918 Worcestershire Landscape
oil on board 25.4 x 20.3 cm

1919 Betty on the Rocks
oil on canvas 50.8 x 40.6 cm

c1919 Crows amongst the Barley Stooks
watercolour on paper 37 x 26 cm

1920 Female Nude
pencil on paper 18 x 28 cm

1920 Geraldine Fitzgerald
oil on canvas 89 x 71 cm

1920s Abstract Compostion
pencil and gouache 25 x 18 cm

1920s Design for a Rug
gouache 36 x 25 cm

1920s Three Elements
oil on canvas 91.5 x 71 cm

1921-22 Seated Female Nude
oil on canvas 56.3 x 46.2 cm
Ulster Museum, Belfast

c1921 Nude in Landscape
oil on canvas 51 x 66 cm

1922 Abstract Composition
gouache 20 x 20 cm
IMMA Collection: Donation 2010, Bank of Ireland Art Collection, 2010

1922 Abstract
oil on canvas 91.9 x 72 cm
Ulster Museum, Belfast

1922 Girl in Blue
oil on canvas

1922 Plants and Rocks
pencil, watercolour and bodycolour 26 x 24.2 cm

c1922-24 Abstract Study (Single Element Composition)
gouache over pencil on paper 12 x 23 cm

c1922 Abstract Composition
gouache 25.5 x 9.5 cm

c1922 Abstract Composition
gouache on paper 20 x 14 cm

c1922 Abstract Composition
gouache on paper 21 x 10.5 cm

c1922 Abstract Composition
gouache on thin card 24.2 x 8.9 cm

c1922 Composition
oil on canvas 64.5 x 49.5 cm

c1922 Oval Composition
gouache on thin card 22.8 x 10.8 cm

c1922 Oval Composition
gouache on thin card 23.5 x 17.3 cm

1923 Decoration
tempera on wood panel 89 x 53 cm
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

1924 Abstract
gouache on paper 18 x 27 cm

1924 Composition
gouache 17.1 x 24.7 cm

1924 Two Elements
oil on canvas 85 x 66 cm

c1924 Three Elements
gouache on card 21.5 x 27.5 cm