Study of a Nun

Gwen John trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1895 to 1898, a school noted for its progressive teaching and acceptance of female students. She moved to Paris in 1903, where she remained for the rest of her life. A reserved but tenacious personality, she formed few but intense relationships, including with the poet Rainer Rilke and sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom she served as the model for his unfinished monument to Whistler. She converted to Catholicism in 1913 during a time of intense anticlericalism from France’s Third Republic. Portraits of nuns featured regularly in her studies of the life in and around the convent of the Dominican Sisters of Charity in Meudon, the suburb of Paris where she lived.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020

Credit Line: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection