Women and Art

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 249, 17 July 1937, Page 4 (Supplement)

Women and Art

Duchess of Kent’s Portraits at Exhibition 'T'HE Duchess of Kent has not allowed her art talent to lie fallow since her marriage. At the Society of Women Artists’ exhibition, now opened in London, she is showing two fine charcoal studies. Both are drawings of women who are her personal friends. The most arresting is a half-length fullfaced portrait of a young woman with a ribbon bandeau fastening back her curly hair. The girl is shown with folded arms. She is wearing what appears to be a woolly jumper ornamented at the neck with two posies of flowers.

But it is the expression that commands the attention. The head is tilted to one side, and the finely-pencilled brows are half-raised as if to question the admirer’s gaze. The second portrait is a half-face

view of an older woman whose long, wavy hair is parted in the centre and coiled in loose folds at the nape of the neck. Again it is the eyes and eyebrows which give life and character to the black-and-white drawing. Both portraits are signed by the Duchess and both bear the title, “Study.” Last year she exhibited a charcoal portrait of the Duke of Kent. The society’s president, Dame Laura Knight, has three pictures in the show, “The Show is On,” a circus picture which appeared in last year’s Academy, and' two water-colours of holiday crowds at Blackpool, one of the most popular British seaside resorts.

The youngest exhibitor is 13-year-old Ursula MeCannell.