The Old Schoolmistress c.1955

 'The Old Schoolmistress' c.1955 Oil on canvas Photograph ©LissLlewellyn Private collection

 

 Who is she?  

In 1942 Evelyn married Roger Folley, in civilian life a horticultural economist but in wartime an RAF officer. Roger Folley came from Colne, a small town in Lancashire, where his father, Ebenezer Folley (universally known as 'Uncle Eb'), was a retired primary school head teacher. He was also a widower, his wife Sarah - Roger Folley's mother - having died in 1948. He was also my grandfather.

In 2013 this imposing portrait appeared, among the countless boxes and portfolios of Evelyn's residual work, untouched after being deposited in the cone of a Kentish oast house for some 50 years. Its appearance was a great surprise, because its existence was only known previously through a photograph dating from about 1960, and even then it hadn't been ascribed to Evelyn.

Eb Folley and friends, c.1960

 

This photograph of my grandfather and some friends was taken in about 1960. It lives in what is fancifully called the family archive, in reality a jumble of old photos and letters stuffed into an envelope. Eb Folley, then rising 90, is on the extreme right in his front room in Colne, and at least one of his friends appears to have closed his eyes the better to concentrate on his discourse.

Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed the painting in the top right-hand corner. (To its left is another portrait from Evelyn's hand: a 1948 study of her husband, Roger Folley. After Evelyn's death he presented this portrait to Manchester Art Galleries, changing the title to The Cerebrant, meaning 'the thinker'.)

On its first appearance from its oast loft it wasn't clear how this canvas could have anything to do with Evelyn. It wasn't a Folley family portrait, or it would have stayed within the family; yet here it was, with a Folley provenance, a cuckoo in a Dunbar nest. Things became clearer when, on turning the picture over, my grandfather's long-remembered handwriting on the verso revealed that he'd written 'The Old Schoolmistress (by Evelyn Dunbar - unfinished)'. This at least established some kind of authenticity. But what was the back story?

We have to conjecture to some extent. Clearly it had been in Eb Folley's possession, but why? And why was it unfinished? Leaving aside any romantic attachment my grandfather had for the lady, a possible reconstruction is that at some time in the 1950s this person, a headmistress in the Colne area, retired. As a retirement presentation gift, it was suggested by the local retired teachers' association (President: E.W.Folley) that a portrait be commissioned of the new retiree. The President suggested that his daughter-in-law, the well-known artist Evelyn Dunbar, might be approached with a view to carrying out the commission. So far, so plausible, but for unknown reasons Evelyn left it unfinished and the portrait was never presented. It reverted to Eb Folley, who hung it proudly in his front room.

Verso of 'The Old Schoolmistress' inscribed 'by Evelyn Dunbar (unfinished)' by E.W.Folley

Why was it never presented? Why didn't Evelyn finish it? In 2014 attempts were made to answer these and other questions, especially concerning the identity of the lady, via the readership of The Colne Times and its times past correspondent, Geoff Crambie. No sexa- or septuagenarian memories were unlocked. The reach of this blog probably hardly compares with that of The Colne Times, but if any reader has any ideas about the origins of this very fine portrait, please contact me via the comments box below.

The story perhaps doesn't end there. Evelyn died in 1960, at about the same time as Eb Folley downsized to a small flat, reducing his effects. Among them was 'The Old Schoolmistress', which Roger Folley recovered, took home with him to Kent and included with Evelyn's residual studio. 

This very incomplete and conjectural account might totter to close by adding that, perhaps as a token of thanks, in the summer of 1956 Eb Folley, together with two other unidentified members, sponsored his daughter-in-law for admission as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. It's not recorded that Evelyn ever exercised her Fellowship.

Text ©Christopher Campbell-Howes 2022

 

Further reading...

EVELYN DUNBAR : A LIFE IN PAINTING
by Christopher Campbell-Howes

is available to order online from:

Casemate Publishing | Amazon UK | Amazon US

448 pages, 301 illustrations. RRP £30

 

 

The Cedars and its Garden Part 2 (1924-46)

 Florence Dunbar in the Garden at The Cedars c.1938 oil on canvas Photograph: ©LissLlewellyn Private collection

The Dunbar family moved into The Cedars, a 17-roomed mid-Victorian house in Strood (the westernmost area of Rochester, Kent) in 1924. I imagine the family was hugely content with William Dunbar's purchase and their new home. Beforehand they had lived at 244, High Street, Rochester, a 4-storey house opposite the forecourt of the old Rochester railway station. Not many pictures survive of this house, but first impressions suggest that it was cramped and dark, with a very limited garden area.

Here are the Dunbars soon after moving into The Cedars, all except William, who was presumably the photographer.

 The Dunbar family in the garden at The Cedars, 1924. Photo: Dunbar family archive.

Left to right they are: Ronald, the oldest of the siblings; Evelyn, the youngest, who would be 16 the following December; Felbridge, a sort of lurcher; Alec; Florence, their mother; Jessie and finally Marjorie (usually known as 'Midge'), born so close together in 1897/98 as to be almost twins. The family seems to me to express a dynamic of energetic unity, and it's this, for what it's worth, that encourages me to think that this photo was very probably taken on the day they moved into The Cedars...that, and the length and quality of the grass. Florence, a gardener to her green fingertips, would in normal circumstances never have allowed a lawn to grow to such a length, nor to have so many alien plants colonising it.

A background feature of this family photograph is the brick wall, which features in so many of Evelyn's garden images. Here's one of them:

Herbaceous Border at The Cedars c.1934 pen and wash on paper. Signed 'E.Dunbar'. Photograph ©LissLlewellyn (The date, c.1934, may be debatable: the garden path has not yet received its diagonally-laid brick edging. C.1926 might be a better estimate.)

Here the garden, or that part of it lying against the brick wall, appears to be well established, no doubt due to the efforts of its handmaidens, maybe Evelyn herself in the foreground and Florence, almost hidden by the greenery just slightly right of centre in the middle ground. The diagonally-laid brick edging evident in later images was probably the work of a rather shadowy pair of gardeners, Alf and/or Bert. 

Alf and Bert: from letter to Charles Mahoney ('Darling Matey'), 20th October 1936. Tate Archive: ©Estate of Evelyn Dunbar

Which was Alf and which was Bert we shall probably never know, and we can only guess at the significance of the marionette strings. One, surnamed Clarke, was a fixture when William Dunbar bought The Cedars. In another letter to Mahoney, dated March 1936, Evelyn wrote '[...] we have another man in the garden to do an 8-hour day on Saturdays [...] He has been very highly recommended & is quite young and strong.' Pausing to note some Evelynish touches, the small change of her esprit, like the patches on Clarke's knees and the spotted handkerchief peeping out of his jacket pocket, we can perhaps assume that Alf and Bert occupied themselves mostly with the fruit and vegetables while Florence, and occasionally her daughters, looked after the ornamental garden.

Florence Dunbar was really the guiding spirit in the development of The Cedars garden. Here - for reference - she is again, as painted by Evelyn, waiting for spring to happen:

Florence Dunbar in the Garden at The Cedars c.1938 oil on canvas Photograph: ©LissLlewellyn Private collection    

It's a cold day in March or April. The first daffodils are flowering, more will follow. Beyond Florence, well wrapped under a plaid blanket and wearing her preferred gardening jacket, some beds of bare earth await her attentions. It's as though she can't wait to get started. Her vigil is shared by what is at first sight an inexplicable black lump in the left foreground, but which on closer examination turns out to be Paul, the Dunbar's Aberdeen terrier, the successor to Felbridge. 

Under the green-fingered Florence's guidance The Cedars garden quickly became Evelyn's abiding source of inspiration. For her it became a metaphor for the Bible-specified interaction between mankind and creator, a notion encapsulated in the story of the Garden of Eden. This garden concept fitted comfortably with Evelyn's - and her mother's - Christian Science, and continued to do so, greatly amplified, with the onset of World War 2; her employment as a war artist recording the agricultural work of the Women's Land Army extended her horizons far beyond an obscure garden in north Kent.

As if in tribute to Florence's influence, Evelyn includes her mother in several of her garden paintings.

 

The Garden at The Cedars oil on canvas c.1938 Photograph ©LissLlewellyn. Private collection

The Garden at The Cedars might also be the continuation of Florence Dunbar in the Garden at The Cedars, indeed it might record the very next day. Spring has sprung, Florence has abandoned her plaid for her fork, and is getting on with her devotions. We see her again on the extreme right in The Shed, in early summer mode.

The Shed oil on canvas c.1937. Private collection

And we find her again in Apple Blossom at The Cedars, still on the extreme right, still busy. (Follow the link for a fuller discussion.)

 

Apple Blossom at The Cedars c.1939 Photograph Bert Janssen ©Christopher Campbell-Howes. Private collection.

The most extensive of Evelyn's garden images is surely Winter Garden, which I analysed (with some risk of repeat here) almost exactly 10 years ago. The orientation is such that she might have painted it sitting in the open doorway of The Shed. Everything is there - the buttressed brick wall, the diagonally-laid brick path-edgings, the neatly trimmed lawn, the apple trees and of course The Cedars with its tower in the distance. No human figures, though. All gardens have their own personality, not necessarily reflecting the people who created them. Maybe Evelyn's rendering of The Cedars garden captures its own personality, rather than that of the dedicated people who dressed it and kept it. 

Winter Garden 1927-38. Signed 'Evelyn Dunbar'. Purchased by the Tate from the artist in 1939. Photograph ©Tate, London 2016

 

And just as well.  These images are the only records we have of it. The Cedars garden has disappeared. William Dunbar died in 1932, Alec Dunbar left home in 1936, Florence died in 1944. Evelyn left in 1945, to set up their first married home with her husband Roger Folley in Warwickshire. By the end of 1946 there was no longer a Dunbar presence at The Cedars. It was sold, and for a while became a hotel. In due course the garden ground was laid to rest beneath the foundations, drains and infrastructure of an overcrowded housing estate. The garden lives on only through Evelyn's images of it.

Warmest thanks to Paul Liss and Sarah Hill for their contributions.

Text ©Christopher Campbell-Howes 2022.

 

Further reading...

EVELYN DUNBAR : A LIFE IN PAINTING
by Christopher Campbell-Howes

is available to order online from:

Casemate Publishing | Amazon UK | Amazon US

448 pages, 301 illustrations. RRP £30