Marianne L M STOKES
Born in Austria, she studied art under Lindenschmidt in Munich, and won prize money there that enabled her to travel and study in France with Courtois, Colin and Dagnan-Bouveret. At the Atelier Colarossi in 1881 with Helene SCHJERFBECK, the two friends sought out the right places for 'plein air' social realism, and were attracted to Pont Aven in 1883. Marianne met Adrian STOKES there and married him the following year. Later Schjerfbeck would also follow the Stokes pair to St Ives. In 1891, while staying with the Westlakes at Tregerthen Cottage, Zennor, another guest was the great women's rights campaigner, Millicent G Fawcett, who was visiting from Aldeburgh, Suffolk.
Later, when the Stokes' moved on to London (after 1898), Marianne Stokes gave Alice WESTLAKE's London address for many years as her contact for submissions. Her portrait of John Westlake is in the National Portrait Gallery. Candlemas Day (1901) was purchased by the Chantrey Bequest for the nation in 1977. A tapestry, Honour the Women, is in Manchester. Along with Elizabeth Armstrong FORBES, Marianne Stokes was considered in the first line of women painters in England by the turn of the 19th century, and according to Sparrow 'has worked of late in that most stern and stubborn medium, tempera, and small things of hers in various exhibitions attract one always with the desire to know more of her most attractive work.'
The painting lives of Marianne and Adrian Stokes are fully explored in the 2009 publication, Utmost Fidelity, which appeared with the major retrospective of their work mounted simultaneously by Penlee House Gallery, Penzance, and the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro in that year, within a national touring programme. Magdalen Evans, the author and a descendant of Adrian, presented an illustrated lecture on 'The Portraits of and by Marianne & Adrian Stokes' at the National Portrait Gallery in February, 2010.
media
Painter of portraits, historical works and children in oils, gesso and tempera
works and access
Her works include: Portrait of the Hon Mrs Walter James (Illus, Sparrow), Roses, The Queen and the Page, Mother and Child (c1900) (Ill, Falmouth Exh Cat), Madonna with a Fir Tree (see Hardie 2009, p 275), St Elizabeth of Hungary spinning for the poor (Col pl, Hardie 2009)
Access to Work: Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney; Guildhall Art Gallery; Liverpool (Walker) (3); Manchester (Whitworth); Musee d'Orsay, Paris; NPG; Nottingham (Castle); Skagen Museum, Denmark; Tate Britain; QMDH (Windsor); Wallraf-Richartz Museum (Cologne) (2); Wolverhampton
In Cornwall: Lantern Light (acquired 2011) at Penlee House, Penzance.
exhibitions
B FIN (34); G; GI; L (33); NEAC; RBA; Ridley; RA; ROI (11); RWS (23); St Ives 1889; SWA; Dowdeswell; Notts Castle (5); Whitechapel (5); Paris Salon; Chicago (Medal); Women Artists (Falmouth AG, Group 1996); Women Painters (Penlee, Group 2002); Painting at the Edge (Penlee, Group 2005); Adrian & Marianne Stokes (Penlee 2009) & touring
memberships
ARWS (1923)
NEAC (1887)
Royal Anglo-Australian Society of Artists (1889)
misc further info
references
Chantrey Bequest list Tate On-line: Candlemas Day 1901
D Cherry (1987) Painting Women
M Evans (2009) Utmost Fidelity/ Marianne and Adrian Stokes (illus) Biography & Bibl
Gaze (1997) Dictionary of Women Artists;
Hardie (2009) Artists in Newlyn & West Cornwall (incl exh cats from Dowdeswell, Notts Castle & Whitechapel shows) pp274-5 (col pl and b&w illus)
Johnson & Greutzner
Newton et al Painting at the Edge;
Penlee House Artefact Vol 4, Issue 5, June 2011: 'New Acquisition' (Lantern Light)
W S Sparrow (1905) Women Painters of the World (illus)
Tovey (2009) St Ives/ Social History;
Wallace et al (1996) Women Painters in Cornwall 1880-1940 (Col pl: Mother and Child, tempera on panel c 1900)
Whybrow Remembering St Ives;
C Wood Victorian Painters (Bibl)