Fonds GB 0210 MSEDJOHN - Edwin and Sara John papers

Gwendolen Mary John (Gwen John) (1876-1939), artist, was born on 22 June 1876 in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, to Edwin and Augusta John, and was raised in Tenby. She attended the Slade School of Fine Art, London, from 1895 to 1898. In 1904 she settled in Paris, moving to the suburb of Meudon in 1911. She died in Dieppe, France, on 18 September 1939. Gwen John's younger brother, Augustus Edwin John (1878-1961), artist, was born in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, and became a leading British portrait painter. He married Ida Nettleship (1877-1907) in 1901 and they had five children: David (b. 1902), Caspar (1903-1984), Robin (b. 1904), Edwin (1905-1978) and Henry (1907-1935). Dorelia McNeill (1881-1969), his mistress and, following Ida's death, his common-law wife, gave him a further four children: Pyramus (1905-1912), Romilly (1906-1986), Elizabeth Ann (Poppet) (1912-1997) and Vivien (1915-1994). The family settled at Alderney Manor, Dorset, and from 1927 at Fryern Court, Fordingbridge, Hampshire. Augustus died there on 31 October 1961. Edwin John, after a brief career as a boxer, became a watercolour artist. He lived in Paris for some years in the mid-1930s and, possibly as a result, was made executor and chief legatee to his aunt, Gwen John, on her death in 1939. He married Beatrice D. Barry in 1932; their son Ben was born in 1935 and their daughter Sara in 1946.