Return to the Garden
Seed sowing, a return to Evelyn Dunbar and a gardening love affair
Welcome to Spring and thank you for joining me! This week I return to the artist Evelyn Dunbar, whose remarkable painting, “Winter Garden” I looked at in December. Here we view her drawings, her relationship with the artist Charles Mahoney and the unexpected discovery of her work 50 years after her death. To read this post in full you will need to click on the app!
Early Spring, 1936, Oil on canvas, 44.5cm x 19.7cm ©The Tate Gallery
Is there a more hopeful activity that sowing seeds? Pushing a tiny bead into compost, watching daily for those first leaves to emerge seems, every year, like a tiny miracle. My greenhouse benches are now laden with trays of earth and each morning I go to see if anything has appeared overnight. Years ago, living in Brixton with only a handkerchief for a garden, I would use the dining room table as a makeshift greenhouse. The seedlings would strain for light, and I would transfer them to the roof of the bay window, which, as the season progressed, would become a South London Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
This flurry of activity occurred when suddenly we shifted from the dark days of winter to days filled with light: spring arrived last week and has never felt more welcome. On Thursday, the flitting lemon Brimstone butterfly appeared, darting about over the garden, impossible to catch, and reminding me of Alice’s White Rabbit, as I tried to capture it with my camera - “Oh dear! I shall be late!” A symbol of rebirth and the return of warmth and growth, it was a very welcome visitor.
A detail from my painting of Fritillaries with accompanying Brimstone, oil on board
A less welcome caller has been the muntjac family. To my horror I realised that the great swathe of bluebells I have been cultivating for years have been chopped off at their ankles, along with hyacinths and emerging tulips…It seems daffodils and snowdrops are not to their taste, and so I shall have to be content with those. (Any tips here on how I can deter them would be gratefully received, as I fear for the prospects of the forthcoming veg patch.)
In December, I wrote of the artist Evelyn Dunbar (1906 -1960) in her “Winter Garden” and, as promised, I am returning to her in spring. (I have removed the paywall to this post so that you can see that too.) We last saw her when the beds were resting in winter, with empty cloches and just the bones of the brick paths and the pruned apple trees visible. Now we see her mother, Florence, in “Early Spring” (at the head of the page) bent over digging, preparing the soil for the new crops, with a scattering of early daffodils and the sharp shadows of the trees crisscrossing the paths.
Florence Dunbar Tending the Garden, 1939. ©Liss Llewellyn Gallery Here later in spring as the pear blossom emerges
In 1931 Sir William Rothenstein, Principal of the Royal College of Art, received a commission to create a mural at Brockley County School. Rothenstein had recently established an initiative to encourage local authorities to use the talents of recent graduates to decorate public buildings. The task was allocated to Charles Mahoney, a tutor at the college, who had recently completed the renowned mural at Morley College in London.
Mahoney recruited a team of three of his former students to complete the work: Violet Martin, Mildred “Elsi” Eldridge ( the future wife of the poet R.S. Thomas) and Evelyn Dunbar. Mahoney would be paid, as part of his wages, but for the girls it would be a labour of love and was viewed as an opportunity to launch their careers. It would take three years to complete and the commision would prove to have significant consequences for Evelyn.
Work began in the summer of 1933 with Evelyn and Charles working alone together until the other girls could join them in the new year. She was twenty five and Charles three years older, and in the days and months they spent working alongside each other, the relationship of tutor and student changed into one of lovers.
The Country Girl and the Pail of Milk 1933-34 (3.66 x 2.13m) Photograph: Richard Valencia © Christopher Campbell Howes. Evelyn’s panel from the Brockley mural, with tulips in the foreground and a garden path leading into the Kent countryside
They became known amongst their friends as “Adam and Eve,” as not only did they share a deep love of Kent, the Garden of England, but they also discovered a mutual love of plants and gardening. Evelyn came from a family of keen gardeners, and her family plot had been the training ground for her extensive horticultural knowledge. How Charles came by his passion for plants is less clear, as he had no garden of his own until 1937, but the two became part of a group of passionate artist gardeners who during the 1930’s included Edward and Charlotte Bawden, John Nash and Cedric Morris. Between them they exchanged seeds and cuttings by post and would write and discuss their gardening projects. In a letter from Bawden to Mahoney, he asks, “ What is your gardening news? Are you in the same feverish enthusiasm - I feel worn and thin and enervated by constant excessive study of plant lists”. A feeling I know well!
When the mural was completed, Evelyn found herself financially stretched and was keen to find new ways to earn an income. She asked Mr Ragg of Routledge publishers if he might be interested in her illustrating something “horticultural.” He was doubtful but could she perhaps produce something “really new on gardening”? Evelyn fired up by the possibility, contacted Mahoney. “Now mate what about it? Is it a chance for us or not?” He was less than enthusiastic, but Evelyn kept badgering and the prospect of £10.00 in advance, with another £10.00 on completion (almost £1,300 in today’s money) sealed the deal. And so the seeds for their book, “Gardeners’ Choice” were sown.
This combined work is clearly borne out of their mutual gardening passion. The next two years would be spent researching, experimenting and making studies of plants to be included in their venture. They tracked them through the seasons and became intimate with their strengths and failings. The plants they chose, there were forty it total, they felt should have merit beyond one season and be “valuable and decorative in most English gardens.”
A Drawing of Cyclamen neapolitanum and Cyclamen Coüm for Gardeners’ Choice, 1937, 23.5cm x 16.5cm
Their choices were quirky. Many of the plants were uncommon at the time, and would be more at home today in a wild garden than a herbaceous border. They trialled plants at Evelyn’s home, The Cedars, and below are some of Evelyn’s tender drawings of Charles, perched in front of her distinctive garden wall, drawing bergenia crassifolia, a plant that made the final selection.
The progress of the book is charted in their letters. Evelyn wrote to Mahoney several times a week, each one tenderly illustrated, her words at the centre of floral garlands, surrounded by trellis denoting endless kisses. Throughout there are suggestions for meetings, future projects together and latterly hints at shared homes and children.
Only Evelyn’s letters to Mahoney still exist. He kept every one until the end of his life, over eighty in total. His letters to her were likely to have been similarly illustrated, as his later letters to his daughter certainly were, but throughout her correspondence there is a sense of an imbalance in their affection.
Letter from Evelyn to Charles Mahoney Summer, 1935
Letter from Evelyn to Charles Mahoney, February, 1936
A letter asking if he has received a ticket to “the Show” - I wonder if it means the Chelsea Flower Show? It seems they shared the RHS magazines. I love the detail of the tiny gardeners tending the enormous rose.
Postcard from Evelyn to Charles Mahoney, 1934
Their relationship was not without difficulties: Evelyn, a devout Christian Scientist from a family of affluent shopkeepers, Charles a left wing atheist; both held very strong convictions. Florence, Evelyn’s mother, was doubtful of Mahoney and his visits to The Cedars not always comfortable. As work on the book progressed, their relationship became increasingly strained. It is unclear what happened in the autumn of 1937, but we know that Evelyn had a miscarriage, and that they separated just as the book reached fruition. It seems there was no dramatic ending, but simply that Charles moved to the periphery of her life.
Edward Bawden had written a foreword to “Gardeners’ Choice,” but he missed the publication deadline following queries and corrections, and the handwritten text only appeared in the 2016 Persephone edition of the book. Evelyn completed the handwritten drafts (her future husband, Roger Folley, maintaining that she had written the majority of the text.)
Letter to Edward and Charlotte Bawden, 1936
It is certainly difficult to separate who wrote what, but we know that Evelyn created the delightful vignettes that dance among its pages (her family, and the gardeners Alf and Bert, were models for many of them), as well as the cover and endpapers. The full page illustrations were divided between Charles and herself, but it is evident that Evelyn created at least ten of the full page illustrations, from her original studies found later. But their drawings were created to be cohesive and so stylistically they are difficult to separate.
A study for the vignette of Marjorie Dunbar rolling a lawn, Pen and ink with correction in white, 1936-7 for “Gardener’s Choice” ( Marjorie was Evelyn’s sister and who didn’t enjoy gardening as her sisters!)
Study for Gardeners’ Choice: Himalayan Primrose with vignettes of a gardener in the margins, Pencil, pen and ink
In later life, it seems that Evelyn’s passion for gardening faded, perhaps because it was so inextricably linked to her relationship with Charles. Charles, went on to create a cottage garden of his own at Wrotham in Kent, a place that would become the focus for all his future work - but that is a story for another day. (In the meantime, take a peek at
's post.)Evelyn died tragically young of a sudden heart attack, at the age of fifty three, gathering peasticks in her garden. But that is not the end of her tale.
“Autumn and the Poet”, 1948-1960, oil on canvas, 90cm x 150cm Private Collection
In September, 2012 an edition of the BBC programme, the “Antiques Roadshow” was broadcast from Cawdor Castle. A painting was brought in called, “Autumn and the Poet” and was declared by the expert Jeremy Maas to be a “masterpiece”. It was the last work of Evelyn Dunbar. It seems that on her death, her work had been gathered up and placed in the attic of an oast house in Kent, and had remained there, untouched for over fifty years. It consisted of several hundred unrecorded works, including the preparatory sketches for the Brockley murals and for “Gardeners, Choice”. This remarkable discovery brought this unjustly neglected artist back to public attention at last and resulted in her only solo show, “Lost Works” at the Pallant Gallery in 2016.
August, 1937 Study in pen and ink over pencil, 25.4 x 19 cm A rare moment of repose, in a hot and sultry garden
When I fell in love with a “Winter Garden” all those year ago at the gallery in Norwich, her other work was still lying dormant in that attic, waiting to see light again. It was her evocation of December light that had entranced me, but now with the republication of “Gardeners’ Choice” and the fascinating biography by her nephew, I find her drawings equally captivating. Capturing the labour of gardening, the bent figures hauling a spade, gouging planting holes or wearily pushing a garden roller, she captures the toil and pleasure of being in a garden all through the year and, with months of growing ahead of us, it is time to raise your trowel to the remarkable Evelyn Dunbar.
I would love to hear of your favourite garden books and what you are planning to grow this year. Much of my garden has been flooded for months this winter and I am having to rethink what I shall grow - what likes its feet wet in winter and being parched in summer? There are always new challenges! Thank you again for your company and for all your wonderful comments to my last post. I look forward to seeing you again in a couple of weeks. (Do please press the heart, if you liked this post, it really helps my work be seen and it is lovely to know you have visited!)
Study for June, from Country Life 1938 Gardener’s Diary.
Pen and ink, 1937, 25cm x 20cm
Clara Cowling (maternal aunt of Evelyn), Portrait of Evelyn Dunbar Image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn from exhibition “Sanctuary Revisited”, The Garden Museum
Something to read
The Seedling that didn’t want to grow by Britta Teckentrup
Serendipitously, just as I was writing this post, this exquisite book arrived in the post, a gift from a dear friend. While all the other seedlings begin to reach up towards the light in spring, this seed takes a little longer. The tree canopy spreads and the light lessens down on the woodland floor, so the ladybird and ant decide to wait with her. This beautiful tale of hope, of accepting those who are different, is the perfect tale for these disquieting times. Among the layered and luminous illustrations, you will find Cockchafer beetles (should you wish to!), Peacock butterflies and even a Brimstone amongst the leaves.
Something to listen to
This Natural Life - Richard Mabey I loved this half hour on the Norfolk Broads with Martha Kearney and the naturalist Richard Mabey and his partner Polly. Drift along with them in their boat ‘Coquelicot’ and forget the world for a while.
Mabey in the Wild - Snake’s Head Fritillary, Wild Daffodil and Wild Rose I have mentioned these short radio programmes before, but listen again now as he walks the local meadows and hedgerows seeking the treasures of spring.
A page from my own sketchbook of Fritillaria Meleagris
Further Reading
Gardener’s Choice - Evelyn Dunbar and Charles Mahoney, Persephone Books
Evelyn Dunbar: A Life in Painting - Christopher Campbell - Howes
Evelyn Dunbar: The Lost Works - Ed. Sacha Llewellyn and Paul Liss
Santuary: Artist - Gardeners 1919 - 1939 - Garden Museum / Paul Liss
The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between Two World Wars - Frances Spalding
British Women Artists from Suffrage to the Sixties - Carolyn Trant
Lovely article!
For gardening books, I enjoyed Virginia Woolf's Garden: The Story of the Garden at Monk's House, by Caroline Zoob.
I’m also waiting for my library copy of The Rural Hours by Harriet Baker, and if you don’t know about it already, Granta just published a lovely extract here: https://granta.com/rural-hours/
I loved reading this Deborah, thank you so much! I really love her work and can't believe I'd not heard of her until your previous post.
I went to Kew Gardens this morning to see signs of Spring, and its a bit of a mixture there with some daffodils out and others yet to emerge. One magnolia tree was in full bloom with others next to it completely bare. I also saw the wild garlic though not much of it at all compared to last year at this time, so I wonder if I'm too early or if it's the recent cold snaps we've had in London? I picked a few leaves to make some cheese and wild garlic scones today.
I don't have a proper garden but a a patch of earth and another growing space that I fill with large pots, and its ridiculous what I try to fit in it! This year I want to add lots of salvia amistads with white rose campions as I visited the most beautiful rooftop garden in London last year and they had this beautiful blue and white combination in pots that was stunning. I've also bought Cobea and Ipomoea seeds to try grow upwards due to lack of space. I'm hoping for lots of blues this year! x