The Millinery Works Art Gallery

PREVIOUS EXHIBITIONS

Kathleen Paenson - 1924 - 2002

An exhibition of drawings and paintings

2 - 24 March 2005

"I go to Christies and buy old Masters, but looking at these, I wonder why I do"

Sir Kenneth Clark, of Kathleen’s drawings.

"... an artist of outstanding talent, gifted with a rare sense of colour and tone and with a remarkable degree of accomplishment as a draughtswoman"

Robin Guthrie

"Despite receiving little recognition during her lifetime, Kathleen Paenson's works offer a new approach, both in her figurative work and particularly in her still lives where I find an imaginative use of colour."

Charles Bradstock, Browse & Darby

"Full of talent and spirit"

Eric Rimmington

The enigma of Kathleen Paenson: A woman and an Artist

"...the only thing that we can celebrate is life - with colour, joyful design and dancing lines"
Taken from Kathleeen's memoirs

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Above Kathleen with her pet cat  Koshka 1950

Kathleen was an enigmatic person even to family, so much so that when she died in 2002 they were stunned to find the extent of the work she had left behind for their discovery, beautiful paintings and drawings hidden under carpets and drawers, together with the memoirs and papers that would start to make it possible to put together the pieces of her fascinating private and professional life.

When the young Kathleen Dawkin completed her studies at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1948 an examiner said to her, "You will have to choose between being a woman or an artist." It was a statement that rankled with her, giving as it did such an impossible choice. Yet in many ways her life reflects absolutely the difficulties of being both, in the stifling atmosphere of 'respectability' that pervaded the 1940s and 50s.

Born in Kent in 1924, Kathleen was one of three sisters, all encouraged by their mother Aida to follow their artistic interests. However, family life was deeply unhappy as their father was abusive and Kathleen was witness to terrible quarrels between her parents. Perhaps by means of escape she became from an early age intensely engaged with the visual joy of beauty: "The colours of the changing scene of nature was sufficient to make my heart palpitate - and the beauty of the faces around me stirred my imagination. The warm flush of pink colour in the cheeks of my mother contrasting with her black hair - the dark eyes of my younger sister shining like great ripe grapes" [From her memoirs].

Aged fifteen, Kathleen went to the Sidcup School of Art. War had broken out which took its toll emotionally: "The thought of its futility was constantly with me, leaving me no peace... so great was my disgust at man's inhumanity that I had no time to be physically afraid." [Memoirs] However, artistically she was extremely happy at the school under her teachers who included Robin Guthrie, Ruskin Spear and Charles Gorham. As well as making many accomplished drawings, Kathleen executed several murals, including one at Chelsea Hospital for Pensioners for CEMA.

In 1944 she won a scholarship for the Slade. However, not long after she had to return to the family home to nurse her mother who was extrememely ill. Even now her father continued to be violent and abusive. When her adored mother died Kathleen could not bring herself to attend the funeral. "He [her father] was coming towards me over a hill of a field in Petersfield the day my mother was buried. I could not bare the presence of this man who had made my mother so unhappy. I left abruptly, not turning back. I did not go to the funeral, but made my own way back to London."

At the Slade she studied under Frank Ormrod and George Charlton, specialising in painting and drawing from life. The early loss of her mother seems to have brought about an unusual maturity in her work and she shows particular sensitivity to women as subject. Kathleen was awarded a postgraduate study year. On her completion of this she exhibited three paintings at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1948, of which "Irene" (fig. 1) was illustrated in the RA catalogue.

During this time, Kathleen met and married Isaac Paenson. She had answered an advertisement for a housekeeper in West London to make ends meet while studying. Her employer, who was to become her husband, was a Russian Jew 20 years her senior. He was articulate, a conversationalist and intellectual but also soon proved violent and manipulative. Isaac's violence meant the marriage was unhappy and doomed from the outset, but despite having watched the experiences of her own mother, Kathleen, as many women of her generation, felt a duty to try to 'make things work'.

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Above : 'Irene', Oil on canvas 95 x 122cm. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1948, and included in their printed catalogue. Private Collection

Having left the Slade she continued her work as an artist, exhibiting at the RA, A.I.A, the New English Art Club, and R.B.A. as well as teaching at the Maidstone School of Art and at secondary schools. At the end of 1950 Isaac travelled to Geneva to seek employment at the United Nations. Very unhappy in the relationship and not wishing to leave her career in London, Kathleen asked for a divorce. Isaac returned to London adamant that she should go to Geneva with him. "My husband refused to accept the idea of my divorcing him and typed resignation letters himself to the schools at which I was teaching. After my husband had made a violent scene, lasting all through the night, I signed the letters which he had typed, and which my husband promptly posted" [In later affidavit].

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‘Winter on Lake Geneva’, oil on canvas 51 x 76cm, c.1952

The following day she left for Geneva and a year later gave birth to a son, David. Despite the often brutal relationship in which Kathleen found herself trapped, this was an extremely productive period. Some of her works from this time include a series of Geneva landscapes (fig. 2), portraits and self portraits (fig. 3). Her drawings show an increasing strength of line. She also executed several murals including two large works for the United Nations Buildings. In 1957 she had a one-woman show at the Gallerie Potterat. 

Kathleen finally found the courage to file for divorce in 1947, however, a dreadful battle ensued which spanned several years and in which she eventually lost custody of her child. She was never to recover emotionally.

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Above: 'Self Portrait with Koshka' 1951 Private Collection

During this period she lived briefly in Paris, hoping to establish herself there with her son and set up a new life, teaching at L'Ecole D'Art et Dessin. She was also working on a portfolio of illustrative and design work. For a brief period too she found love with an Armenian musician. However when it became clear her son would have to stay in Geneva, she returned to Switzerland and took a teaching post at an international school in Bluche sur Sierre.

In 1961, she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Deborah. Short of money and time, her work in this period became restricted to the intimate drawings and sketches she made of her children. Finally, finances dictated that she return to London in 1965, taking up a teaching job in a secondary school in London. Her son visited during the school holidays, which were times when the three could be a family. Her public artistic aspirations were shelved and a long period of private working began in earnest.

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Above: East London School Girl, London c. 1987

For twenty years she was a dedicated teacher in the East End. The collection of "London School Girls" of which fig. 4 is one, includes several hundred drawings of the girls she taught, celebrating the diversity of their culture and race as well as their individuality.

She returned to painting in the mid 1980s, working on several large compositions as well as a series of abstracts and still lives. She also worked for the Norwegian-British Theatre Ensemble "Company of Wolves", producing strong linear works for posters (fig 5) and also a series of masks. She never stopped drawing, sketching and designing compositions: But sadly the courage to exhibit did not return.

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Above: Poster design for Company of Wolves, Edinburgh Festival 1988

In February 2003 a small retrospective of her works was shown at the Vortex Gallery in London, followed later that year by a second exhibition of mythological works at the Arcola Theatre, London; the first exhibitions of her works for so many years. It is in response to the great interest and appreciation shown by the public at these exhibitions that this larger more comprehensive show at the Millinery Works Gallery has been organised.

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Above: ‘Dancing Woman’ (detail) from a series of sketches from the late 1990s, biro on A4

Hidden for so long the works of Kathleen Paenson - and the exceptional flair that they are imbued with - are now finding the light of day. Their tenderness and clarity give affirmation that the talent Robin Guthrie and Sir Kenneth Clark noted in Kathleen as a young woman never left her, but developed and matured.

Deborah Dawkin

Continue with catalogue

For further information email paul@millineryworks.co.uk 

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