Vivien John (8 March 1915 – 20 May 1994) was a British artist known for her paintings.

Biography

Vivien John was born at Alderney Manor in Dorset, the daughter of

Dorelia McNeill Dorothy (Dorelia) McNeill (19 December 1881 – 23 July 1969) was best known as a model for the Welsh artists Gwen John and Augustus John, was the common-law wife of the latter, and has been credited for inspiring "his first unequivocally perso ...

and the artist

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 ...

; she would be the last of their four children together. After a Bohemian upbringing in Dorset, Vivien John attended the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

from 1932 to 1934 and had her first solo exhibition at the Cooling Gallery in London during 1935 before studying with the

Euston Road School The Euston Road School is a term applied to a group of English painters, active either as staff or students at the School of Drawing and Painting in London between 1937 and 1939. The School opened in October 1937 at premises in Fitzroy Street bef ...

of artists in the late 1930s. Travelling with her father, she visited Italy, France and then Kingston in Jamaica where a joint exhibition of their paintings was held. John also spent time in Paris with her aunt, the artist

Gwen John Gwendolen Mary John (22 June 1876 – 18 September 1939) was a Welsh artist who worked in France for most of her career. Her paintings, mainly portraits of anonymous female sitters, are rendered in a range of closely related tones. Although sh ...

, during this period. During the Second World War, Vivien John served as a nurse with the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

. As the war came to an end, she took art lessons in Paris at the

Académie de la Grande Chaumière The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, France. History The school was founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, near the Acadé ...

before returning to London to study at the

Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

in 1945. After the War, John married a haematologist, Dr John White, and the couple spent 1947 in Moscow and periods of the 1960s in both Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. She continued to paint and had a number of exhibitions, including a 1967 show at the

Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History of the Gallery The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...

in Liverpool and a solo exhibition at the Upper Grosvenor Galleries in 1971. Her work featured in group exhibitions at the Royal Academy, the

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 ...

and with 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 ...

. Examples of John's work was included in the 1987 ''Slade Contemporaries'' exhibition and a memorial exhibition was held in 1995.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:John, Vivien 1915 births 1994 deaths 20th-century English painters 20th-century English women artists Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts Alumni of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Artists from Dorset English women painters John family