22nd Jul, 2021 10:00

Cornish Art & Fine Art Sale

 
  Lot 50
 

Joan Manning Sanders 1913-2002

Her personal archive.

A fascinating collection of photographs and newspaper cuttings spanning early family images but predominantly the period of her great celebrity in the late 1920s.

Consisting of:

Good photo album showing early days at Sennen Cove, fisherman's cottages, Success Inn, family groups, building work to the family home in Marias Lane, Sennen, Laura Knight - a fine image of at her easel en plein air plus other group shots with her and George Manning Sanders. 117 photos altogether from snapshot size (5.5x5.5cm) to 14x8.5cm, 1912-1924.

Large leather bound photo album used as scrap book for multiple newspaper cuttings charting JMS's early success at the Royal Academy. Large loose photograph showing Joan Manning Sanders with palette.

A4 Ringbound folder with multiple sleeves containing 66 photographs, many large format, of posed images of JMS working at her easel, in her studio or en plein air, or posed with one of her finished canvases. Also photographic reproductions of many of her paintings. Plus quantities of newspaper cuttings photographs and other loose material.

Modern album with loose photos in plastic sleeves. Sennen cove, fishermen, family groups etc, 41 photographs.

A Royal Academy of Arts Summer exhibition catalogue 1928.

JMS has an entry on p.46 with 'The Brothers' which gained her considerable fame.

Manning Sanders was a remarkable individual, who as a teenager was feted by the national media, the art establishment and the foremost artist's community of the day in her home of Cornwall. However, her artistic output lasted barely a decade and she later sank into relative obscurity. An exhibition at Penlee House in 2011 brought her name and her considerable talent to the forefront once again.

Joan Manning-Sanders was born to bohemian parents Ruth and George in 1913. Creatively encouraged from an early age, it was Father Bernard Walke of St Hilary and his artist wife Annie, who really recognised her potential and told Joan when she was 11 that she 'must become a painter.' In 1927 at just 13 years old, she had her first painting accepted by the Royal Academy, although not hung in the Summer Exhibition for lack of space. The following year, 'The Brothers' was accepted and became one of the most talked about paintings of the exhibition. She was described as 'a child genius' and fast became a celebrity. In 1929, before her 16th birthday, Joan was elected to the Newlyn Society of Artists, having been proposed by Stanhope Forbes. She had another large work 'The Concertina Players' accepted to the RA Summer Exhibition in 1929 and two works in the Paris Salon. In July of that year, a book dedicated entirely to her work was published, with an introduction and commentary by R H Wilenski, one of the most respected art critics of the day. It was an unprecedented achievement for one so young. Her work was in huge demand and she could hardly keep up with the requests for paintings.

Between the ages of 15 and 22 Joan had exhibited seven pictures at the Royal Academy. As she matured Joan had to cope with the high expectations her earlier status as child prodigy had created. She rented a studio in St Ives and then later enrolled in Chelsea Art School. Whilst at Chelsea in the mid 1930s, she met and married fellow student Roderick Floyd. They went to Paris and took a studio, working right up to the invasion in 1940. They fled, leaving their possessions behind in the scramble to escape France. By now, Joan had become a mother, but she continued to paint and took another studio in St Ives until she was called up for war service and went to work in the design department of Gloster Aircraft. It was at this point that Joan's artistic career really started to dwindle. She did not paint during the war, nor after until 1949 when she went to live in Canada. She had hoped to earn a living from portraiture but unfortunately there were not enough residents in Vancouver who wished to be painted. She gave some private art tuition, but this was to be her last involvement in the art world. She returned from Canada in 1958. She spent the rest of her life as an assistant and researcher to her mother Ruth who had become a prodigious writer of children's folklore stories. Ruth celebrated her 100th birthday in 1988 but died eight weeks later. Joan died in 2002. It is an extraordinary story that a talent that burned so brightly could diminish so quickly. Looking at her work today, it is easy to see the influence of those who advised and encouraged her; Dod and Ernest Procter, Laura Knight, Harold Harvey - all towering figures of this prestigious artists colony. Although Joan was one of their contemporaries, she was also still just a child. Her style of figurative painting belonged to the hey-day of these much older artists. She returned to Cornwall in the 1950s, which was a golden era for a new artists colony in St Ives but perhaps, having had her moment in the spotlight, she did not wish to be part of it. Her style of work would hardly have fitted in. She spent the rest of her working life in a creative role and we can assume it was one she found productive and satisfying.

Sold for £2,100


 

 

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