Ethel Wright (painter)

Ethel Wright later Ethel Bradley (1866 – 1939) was a British painter. Although Wright has several paintings in British national collections, her most famous work is a portrait of Christabel Pankhurst.

Ethel Wright
Born1866
London, England
Died1939 (aged 72–73)
NationalityUnited Kingdom
Occupationpainter
Known forportraiture
Spouse(s)Mr Bradley

Life
Christabel Pankhurst by Wright

Wright was born in London and she studied at Académie Julian in Paris as advised by Solomon Joseph Solomon.[1] There is a portrait of her by Hayman Seleg Mendelssohn. She achieved a profile as a painter in the 1890s identified in the modernist Rhythm Group.[2] She was known for painting peirrots and her paintings were frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy.[3] She achieved some success as a painter but she was identified as a great woman artist. She became a supporter of the suffragettes.[4] By 1898 she was exhibiting at the Oldham Gallery and she was "also known as Mrs Bradley".[1]

A portrait she made of Christabel Pankhurst was bought by the leading suffragette Una Duval after it was exhibited by the Women's Social and Political Union's art exhibition, held at the Prince's Ice Rink in Knightsbridge and funded by Clara Mordan, in May 1909.[4][5][6] Wright would later paint a portrait of Duval.

She continued to support the suffragettes and her paintings were still being exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1927.[3] Wright died in 1939.

Legacy

Her painting of Christabel Pankhurst was donated by Duval's descendant to the National Portrait Gallery in 2011.[2] It was exhibited in 2018 when it was noted that the gallery had previously only had pictures of suffragettes taken by the police as suspicious characters.[4]

References
  1. "Ethel Bradley?". The Artist. 1898.
  2. "Dame Christabel Pankhurst - National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
  3. Broadley, Rosie (5 March 2015). "Suffragette Painter: discovering Ethel Wright". National Portrait Gallery (London). Retrieved 8 February 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. Brown, Mark (24 July 2014). "Portrait of an angry lady: suffragette Christabel Pankhurst goes on display". the Guardian. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
  5. "Clara Mordan". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  6. [Sheila Stowell, A Stage of their own: Feminist playwrights of the suffrage era (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 53]
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.