Ethel Sands (6 July 1873 – 19 March 1962) was an American-born

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

and hostess who lived in England from childhood. She studied art in Paris, where she met her life partner

Anna Hope Hudson Anna Hope Hudson (1869–1957) was an American-born artist who lived and worked in France and England. She was a founding member of the London Group, and the life partner of likewise artist Ethel Sands. Early life Hudson was born 10 September 18 ...

(Nan). Her works were generally still lifes and interiors, often of Château d'Auppegard that she shared with Hudson. Sands was a

Fitzroy Street Group The Fitzroy Street Group was an organisation created to promote and support artists. It was established in 1907 by Walter Sickert and merged in 1913 with the Camden Town Group to form the London Group. Overview In 1907 Walter Sickert formed the F ...

and

London Group The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...

member. Her works are in London's National Portrait Gallery and other public collections. In 1916 she was made a British citizen. Although a major art patron and an artist, she is most remembered as a hostess for the cultural elite, including

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developme ...

and

Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarg ...

Early life

Ethel Sands was born on 6 July 1873 in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, ...

, the first child of Mary Morton Hartpence and

Mahlon Day Sands Mahlon Day Sands (March 1, 1842 - May 7, 1888) was an American merchant. Early life Sands was born on March 1, 1842, in New York City. He was a son of merchant Abraham B. Sands (1815–1861) and Sarah A. ( Day) Sands (1816–1906). His brothers we ...

, who married in 1872. Mahlon Sands was secretary of the American Free Trade League, who in 1870 advocated for civil service reform and free trade. He was partner of his deceased father's pharmaceutical importing firm, A.B. Sands and Company. Ethel had two younger brothers, Mahlon Alan and Morton Harcourt Sands, who were respectively 5 and 11 years younger than her. In 1874 the family left the United States for England, intending to only visit the country. However, Mahlon Sands and his family stayed in England and travelled among European countries. They also visited the United States annually"Mahlon Sand's Death: A Fatal Accident in London, While Starting for a Ride."
''New York Times''. 9 May 1888. Retrieved 12 March 2014. and were there for an extended visit from 1877 to 1879. They kept their house in Newport, Rhode Island throughout this time. The wealthy Sands circulated amongst London society, including writer and statesman

John Morley John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, (24 December 1838 – 23 September 1923) was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor. Initially, a journalist in the North of England and then editor of the newly Liberal-leani ...

, politician

William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...

, writer

, artist

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

, the

Rothschild family The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of F ...

, and

Henry Graham White Henry Graham White (26 August 1880 – 19 February 1965), known as Graham White, was a radical British Liberal Party politician. Background He was the son of John Arnold White and Annie Sinclair Graham of Birkenhead. He was educated at Birkenh ...

. Mahlon's sister, Katherine, was married to journalist and newspaper editor

Edwin Lawrence Godkin Edwin Lawrence Godkin (2 October 183121 May 1902) was an Irish-born American journalist and newspaper editor. He founded ''The Nation'' and was the editor-in-chief of the ''New York Evening Post'' from 1883 to 1899.Eric Fettman, "Godkin, E.L." ...

. They were part of

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...

, then

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

', social circle.

painted the portrait of her mother, who was considered "a famous society beauty of her day." Mary Sands was "much admired" by writer

, who called her "that gracious lady" and based his heroic character "Madame de Mauves" on her. Ethel Sands was raised in a respectable upper-class household in which her parents were "happily married". While her father was considered handsome and her mother beautiful, Anthony Powell states that some people wrote in their diaries and letters that she was plain. In her later years, Powell met her and said that "so great was her elegance, charm, capacity to be amusing in a no-nonsense manner, that I could well believed her to be good-looking in her youth.Anthony Powell.
Under Review: Further Writings on Writers, 1946–1990
''. University of Chicago Press; 1 July 1994. . p. 134–135. Her father had ridden horseback through

Hyde Park Hyde Park may refer to: Places England * Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London * Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds * Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield * Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester Austra ...

, was thrown from the horse and died an accidental death in 1888.Robert L. Gale
''A Henry James Encyclopedia.''
New York: Greenwood Press, 1989, 586–587. His widow, Mary Sands, raised Ethel and her brothers until her death on 28 July 1896.Ethel Sands.
Tate. Retrieved 17 January 2014.

Art

Ethel Sands - Tea with Sickert - 1911-1912

Ethel Sands - Still Life with a View over a Cemetery - by 1923 when sold

Education

Encouraged by artist

, Sands studied painting in Paris at the Académie Carrière under

Eugène Carrière Eugène Anatole Carrière (16 January 1849 – 27 March 1906) was a French Symbolist artist of the fin-de-siècle period. Carrière's paintings are best known for their near-monochrome brown palette and their ethereal, dreamlike quality. He ...

for several years, beginning in 1894. There she met fellow student Nan Hudson, born Anna Hope Hudson in the United States, who became her life partner.

Ian Chilvers Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Hebrew given name (Yohanan, ') and corresponding to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. It is a popular name in Sc ...

. (1999
''A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art.''
Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 545-546.Nan (Anna Hope) Hudson.
Tate. Retrieved 17 January 2014. During this time, Sands became the guardian of her two younger brothers following her mother's death in 1896.

Painting

Sands painted still lifes and interior settings.

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

suggests that was inspired by

Édouard Vuillard Jean-Édouard Vuillard (; 11 November 186821 June 1940) was a French painter, decorative artist and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, he was a prominent member of the Nabis, making paintings which assembled areas of pure color, and interior s ...

's dry brush technique, colour palette and depiction of "intimate" scenes. Her first exhibition was at

Salon d'Automne The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The ...

in Paris in 1904. In 1907, at

Walter Sickert Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942) was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on d ...

's invitation, she became a member and exhibited paintings she made at the

. She also purchased the works of other artists. She was one of the artists that founded the

. According to author Kate Deepwell, her works, and those of

Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...

and other women, were evaluated differently at that time from those made by men: The best critique of woman's work at the time would be that they had individuality, but they would not have been considered innovative, modern works like those made by men. In Paris in 1911 she had her first show dedicated to her works. Hudson and Sands had a show at Carfax Gallery in 1912. The next year she was part of the "English Post-Impressionists, Cubists and Others" show in Brighton. Her works were exhibited at

Goupil Gallery Goupil & Cie is an international auction house and merchant of contemporary art and collectibles. Jean-Baptiste Adophe Goupil founded Goupil & Cie in 1850. Goupil & Cie became a leading art dealership in 19th-century France, with its headquart ...

, and in 1922 she had her initial solo show. She also exhibited often at the

Women's International Art Club The Women's International Art Club, briefly known as the Paris International Art Club, was founded in Paris in 1900. The club was intended to "promote contacts between women artists of all nations and to arrange exhibitions of their work", and ...

and the

New English Art Club The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It continues to hold an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and a ...

. Hudson purchased Château d'Auppegard near Dieppe, France in 1920, which was the subject of several of Sand's paintings. Some of the interior paintings are ''A Spare Room, Château d'Auppegard'' and ''Double Doors, Château d'Auppegard.'' Other examples are the landscape ''Auppegard Church from Château, France'' and one of her partner, ''Nan Hudson Playing Patience at Auppegard.'' Her works are in the collections of

museum Government Art Collection, and

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...

Socialite and patron

Like Lady Sibyl Colefax and

Lady Ottoline Morrell Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Morrell (16 June 1873 – 21 April 1938) was an English aristocrat and society hostess. Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befriended writers including Aldous Huxley, Sieg ...

, Sands entertained artists and writers with the intention to nurture and discuss ideas relevant to their careers. Affiliated with the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strac ...

, she was most well known as "one of the leading artist hostesses of her time", her lavish affairs were financially possible due to the significant wealth she inherited from her parents. She was mainly at the Oxford, Newington house until 1920, but when in England she also entertained at her London Lowndes Street house, and between 1913 and 1937 at 15 Vale, Chelsea, London house, where she lived near her mother's friend,

. Notable artists

and

Arnold Bennett Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist. He wrote prolifically: between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboratio ...

were among the writers of the "cultural elite" who visited her. Her friends included artist

Jacques-Émile Blanche Jacques-Émile Blanche (; 1 January 1861 – 30 September 1942) was a French artist, largely self-taught, who became a successful portrait painter, working in London and Paris. Early life Blanche was born in Paris. His father, whose name he s ...

, writer

Edith Wharton Edith Wharton (; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and interior designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray ...

, poet

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

, essayist and critic

Logan Pearsall Smith Logan Pearsall Smith (18 October 1865 – 2 March 1946) was an American-born British essayist and critic. Harvard and Oxford educated, he was known for his aphorisms and epigrams, and was an expert on 17th Century divines. His ''Words and Idioms' ...

and novelist Howard Overing Sturgis.

Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...

(a founder of the

) met at Sands' house and her uncle,

wrote of his upcoming visit to Sands' house in Oxfordshire, "There one fortnight, and then back to "holy wars", patriotism, and buncombe..." File:Edwin Godkin.jpg,

, her uncle, a journalist and editor File:Henry James.jpg,

, writer, neighbour and close friend of the family File:Walter Sickert photo by George Charles Beresford 1911 (1).jpg,

, artist and mentor She was a patron and collector of works by other contemporary artists. For instance, she commissioned Boris Anrep, a Russian immigrant, to create mosaics and murals in her Vale, Chelsea house. Sands continued to entertain into the 1950s with her friends, including

Duncan Grant Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a British painter and designer of textiles, pottery, theatre sets and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major ...

and

Desmond MacCarthy Sir Charles Otto Desmond MacCarthy FRSL (20 May 1877 – 7 June 1952) was a British writer and the foremost literary critic, literary and dramatic critic of his day. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, the intellectual secret society, fro ...

, until he died in 1952. She was described as a "plain woman of immense charm, cultivation and perception, and a painter of considerable talent" in the ''Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction.'' It was suggested there that Henry James modelled the character Nanda in ''

The Awkward Age ''The Awkward Age'' is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in ''Harper's Weekly'' in 1898–1899 and then as a book later in 1899. Originally conceived as a brief, light story about the complications created in her family's socia ...

'' after Sands.

World wars

Sands tended to soldiers who had been injured in France during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, having established a hospital for soldiers near

Dieppe Dieppe (; Norman: ''Dgieppe'') is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to Newha ...

with Hudson. It was forced to close down, and they continued their nursing efforts in both France and England. Sands was then in Britain working as a forewoman in a factory that made overalls. In 1916 she became a British citizenship. During World War II, Sands served as a nurse. The house in

Chelsea, London Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area. Chelsea histori ...

was destroyed during

The Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

by a

parachute mine A parachute mine is a naval mine dropped from an aircraft by parachute. They were mostly used in the Second World War by the Luftwaffe and initially by the Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command. Frequently, they were dropped on land targets. Hist ...

, and the house in France was broken into and its contents were stolen or destroyed. The two war-time events resulted in the loss of most of Sands and Hudson's works.

Personal life

Sands and Hudson divided their time between England and France to accommodate their lifestyle preferences. Hudson enjoyed living a relatively quiet life in France and Sands liked the London and Oxford social life. Sands entertained people within and outside of the cultural elite throughout her life. When Hudson's health began to fail, Sands nursed her until she died in 1957. Sand continued to entertain after Hudson's death. Her date of death was 19 March 1962. Friend

wrote a sketch based upon her called "The Lady in the Looking Glass", subtitled "A Reflection", about a time that she saw her come "in from the garden and not reading her letters." The mirror symbolised the way in which art is used to take a snapshot in time, but can also cut. Wendy Baron, an author and art historian, wrote a biography about Sands, partly based upon the letters that Sands exchanged with Hudson and others. Tate Archives now holds the correspondence. She was made

Dame ''Dame'' is an honorific title and the feminine form of address for the honour of damehood in many Christian chivalric orders, as well as the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British honours system and those of several oth ...

Ethel Sands in 1920.

Works

Among the works that survived World War II plunders and bombings are: * ''A Dressing Room,'' oil on millboard, 46 x 38 cm, The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. Before it came to The Ashmolean, it was owned by

. The museum commented on the similarity of this work to paintings made by

. * ''A Spare Room, Château d'Auppegard,'' c. 1925, oil on board, 44.5 x 53.5 cm,

Government Art Collection The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in t ...

''A Spare Room, Château d'Auppegard.''
Your Paintings: Ethel Sands. BBC. Retrieved 18 January 2014. It was exhibited at British Council, Cairo & Algiers, 1944. * ''Auppegard Church from the Château, France,'' oil on canvas, 60 x 48 cm, City of London Corporation''Auppegard Church from the Château, France.''
Your Paintings: Ethel Sands. BBC. Retrieved 18 January 2014. * ''Bedroom Interior, Auppegard, France,'' oil on canvas, 60 x 48 cm, City of London Corporation * ''Double Doors, Auppegard, France,'' oil on canvas, 53 x 45 cm, City of London Corporation''Double Doors, Auppegard, France.''
Your Paintings: Ethel Sands. BBC. Retrieved 18 January 2014. * ''Figure Seated by an Open Window,'' oil on canvas, 60 x 48 cm, City of London Corporation * ''Flowers in a Jug,'' 1920s, oil on canvas, Tate * ''Girl Reading on a Sofa, Auppegard, France,'' oil on canvas, 53 x 46 cm, City of London Corporation * ''Girl Sewing, Auppegard, France,'' oil on canvas, 49 x 60 cm, City of London Corporation * ''Interior at Portland Place, London,'' oil on canvas, 43 x 58 cm, City of London Corporation * ''Interior with Mirror and Fireplace,'' oil on canvas, 65 x 53 cm, City of London Corporation * ''Interior with Still Life and the Statuette of the Madonna,'' oil on canvas, 67.3 x 58.5 cm, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales * ''(Lloyd)

,'' 1932, oil on canvas, 61.4 x 49.8 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London * ''Nan Hudson Playing Patience at Auppegard, France,'' oil on canvas, 64 x 52 cm, City of London Corporation''Nan Hudson Playing Patience at Auppegard, France.''
Your Paintings: Ethel Sands. BBC. Retrieved 18 January 2014. * ''Still Life with a View over a Cemetery,'' oil on board, 45 x 37.5 cm, The Fitzwilliam Museum * ''Still Life with Books and Flowers,'' oil on canvas, 36 x 44 cm, City of London Corporation * ''Tea with Sickert,'' c. 1911–12, oil on canvas, 61 x 51 cm, Tate * ''The Bedroom at Auppegard, France, Girl Reading,'' oil on canvas, 51 x 61 cm, City of London Corporation * ''The Chintz Couch,'' c. 1911–12, oil on board, 46.5 x 38.5 cm, Tate * ''The Open Door, Auppegard, France,'' oil on canvas, 54 x 45 cm, City of London Corporation''The Open Door, Auppegard, France.''
Your Paintings: Ethel Sands. BBC. Retrieved 18 January 2014.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sands, Ethel 1873 births 1962 deaths Artists from Newport, Rhode Island British women artists British socialites 20th-century British painters 20th-century American women artists 19th-century American women artists Lesbian artists