Iris Tree on a Horse

Iris Tree (1897-1968) was an actress and poet who was sought after as a model by artists such as Modigliani, Augustus John, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, Jacob Epstein and Man Ray. She was particularly famed for her bobbed hair. This work is one of Dora Carrington’s so-called 'tinselled pictures', which she began creating from 1923. They found a popular audience and she sold them regularly as well as giving them as gifts to friends. In her book on Dora Carrington the author Jane Hill describes her technique: 'Made by the simple device of back-painting on glass, Carrington outlined her design, with a fine nib, in Prussian blue or black ink and filled in with a mixture of translucent and opaque paints. [...] Carrington dressed the forms she had painted with collage of silver papers, stuck directly onto the glass. [...] the art was in knowing how much glass to leave uncovered and how much work the silver papers should do’. Hill goes on to describe this painting in particular: 'Carrington made a small picture of Iris Tree galloping on a white horse against a midnight sky, looking like a Joan of Arc with spurs on her heels, a sword belt and sheath, and a billowing blue cloak. This fragile picture became a kind of St Christopher for Iris which she carried with her, and in the 1950s when she was staying in a one-room apartment in Rome "her little equestrian portrait by Carrington rested against a pile of books on the table"’.

c. 1920s

Oil, ink, silver foil and mixed media on glass

11.4 x 14.0cm

597

Image courtesy of The Ingram Collection

This work is part of The Ingram Collection of Modern British & Contemporary Art and was on loan to the Lightbox for the exhibition "Redressing the balance: Women Artists from The Ingram Collection" (11 August - 20 September 2020).