Modelling Bohemia: Four Women in the London Art World 1900-1939

Ashford, Justine (2022) Modelling Bohemia: Four Women in the London Art World 1900-1939. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to present four portraits of women who were occasional models in London’s ‘Bohemia’ between 1911 and 1931 and to answer two questions: Why were they significant and what makes them problematic as biographical subjects?

Historically, art history did not deem the artist’s model as significant in her own right. Recent scholarship has sought to redress this lack by foregrounding the model’s contribution to the artistic process, focussing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but stopping short of the period just before and between the world wars. This thesis seeks to address the gap by offering four perspectives on women who might be considered artists’ models in ‘Bohemian’ London: Lillian Shelley, Iris Tree, Norine Schofield (‘Dolores’) and Oriel Ross, while recognising that modelling was part of their activity within this milieu.

I explore Lillian Shelley’s reputation as the quintessential model of Bohemian lore and consider how archival material reinforces her status as an emblem of a period that is half real, half imagined. I examine how Iris Tree’s modelling may be understood as an expression of rebellion against the old order and how the concoction of her own myth was aided by the various versions of her identity existing in images and print. I consider Dolores’ status as an early celebrity of the print press and how she utilised her association with Jacob Epstein to further her career. Finally I look at how the artist’s model evolved into the photographic and couture model in the person of Oriel Ross, and how her work as an amateur artist suggests a growing agency.

I counterpoint the various versions made of these women with their self-interpretations in their own creative work, showing how artistic agendas, commercial imperatives, self-mythologizing and the performativity of the milieu intersect to make them tricky biographical subjects. The significance of this study is that it furthers understanding of the model’s status during this period of immense artistic and social change and explores the limits of conventional biographical approaches with subjects for whom posing was part of their identity.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	05 Nov 2024 08:34
Last Modified:	05 Nov 2024 08:34
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/97491
DOI:

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