#AugustusEdwinJohn
Portrait of Baroness Baba d'Erlanger and Miss Paula Gellibrand (1919)

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#AugustusEdwinJohn
Portrait of Baronne Baba d’Erlanger and Miss Paula Gellibrand (1919-21).

By the late 1930s and early 1940s, Welsh artist Augustus Edwin John was Britain’s most famous portraitist, yet he remained drawn to people at society’s margins like Romani families, working-class models, and visitors from the British empire. In London and Wales, he encountered Black Caribbean sitters whose presence in wartime Britain was growing through service, study, and migration. This painting records one such meeting. A young woman of West Indian heritage is shown half-length, turned slightly to her right but raising her chin and gaze above ours, so we see her as alert, intelligent, and self-possessed. Her skin is a warm copper-brown, modeled with broad, broken strokes that catch light across her forehead, nose, and cheekbones. Dark, springy curls spread around her shoulders, painted in looping, quick marks over a grey-ochre ground. Her eyes are dark and reflective as strong brows give the face structure. She wears a simple, earth-toned garment with a pale strap on the left, suggestive of everyday clothing rather than costume. The background is roughly scumbled, without setting, pushing our attention to the woman’s face and the agency of her look. John avoids caricature: the palette is restrained, the pose dignified, and the looseness of the paint lets the sitter stay individual rather than “type.” Like his related works “The Two Jamaican Girls” (1937) and other portraits of women of color, it both reflects the imperial world that brought artist and sitter together and quietly insists on her beauty, intellect, and modernity within it. Augustus John trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he was hailed as the most brilliant student of his generation, admired for the freedom of his line and his bohemian independence. After early success, he became sought after for portraits of writers, aristocrats, and political figures, but he repeatedly turned away from elite commissions to paint people he found visually and culturally compelling.

“A West Indian Girl” by Augustus Edwin John (Welsh) – Oil on canvas / c. 1940 – National Museum Wales (Cardiff) #WomenInArt #AugustusJohn #CaribbeanPortraiture #BlackPortraiture #art #artText #artwork #WelshArtist #AugustusEdwinJohn #arte #BlueskyArt #1940sArt #PortraitofaWoman #NationalMuseumWales

#AugustusEdwinJohn
Portrait of Miss Dorothy Duveen, (1950)

#AugustusEdwinJohn
Portrait of Mrs Eve Fleming, (1922)