invited by Lucy Soni
Romaine Brooks
I stumbled across Romaine Brooks (1874-1970)
in a discarded magazine, instantly drawn to her
androgynous portraits in muted colours. Ignoring
contemporary artistic trends she instead drew
inspiration from Symbolist and Aesthetic movements
of the 19th century and was hugely influenced by
Whistler. Committed to following her own path, she
rented a studio in St Ives and began creating finer
shades of grey. When asked by a group of local
artists to give an inform al show of her work, she
displayed only some pieces of cardboard on which
she had dabbed her experiments with grey paint.
South London Women Artists I’m Inside, Ring The Bell
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