Sir William Orpen's Bridgit - a picture of Miss Elvery
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Sampling of works by 
Beatrice Elvery


Iosagan illustrations (1)
1907


Iosagan illustrations (2)
1907

 Bridgit - a picture of Miss Elvery
(Beatrice Elvery)
1909
Sir William Orpen  (1878-1931) Irish painter
Owner?
Oil on canvas
  43.25 x 33.25 in
signed and dated on bottom left - 'Orpen 1909' 
 Jpg:  Friend of the JSS Gallery

 
From: Wendy & Gordon Hawksley
<g  w@whawksley.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 

Beatrice Elvery, a young irish girl and sculpture student, developed a friendship with Orpen when she first him at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin in 1897. In later years Orpen was based in London and Beatrice had her own studio in Kildare Street, Dublin but they continued their friendship via their correspondence with each other. He would address her as 'Bridgit' and would sign himself as 'Digit'. In 1912 Beatrice married Patrick Campbell [or Gordon Campbell. He later became 2nd Baron Glenavy (details in "Dictionary of Irish Artists" by Theo Snoddy) 1] and she became Lady Glenavy. She moved in the highest literary circles including Yeats, Lawrence, Mansfield and Shaw. 

From: Tomás Maher 
<to  m   aher@eircom.net> 
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2003 

I recently bought an old edition of  Patrick Pearse's collection of short stories in Irish entitled "Iosagan" with beautiful colour illustrations by Beatrice Elvery. I had never heard of Beatrice before so a friend did a search on Yahoo and came up with her portrait and the info from wendy and Gordon Hawksley.

The book Iosagan is one of the first collections of short stories Published in Irish (seemingly about 1907, Though there is no Publication date in the small octavo volume I have). As you may know P. Pearse (Padraic Mac Piarais) was the Leader of the 1916 Rising and was subsequently executed by the British army. In earlier years he was an innovative educator and prolific author in irish and english.  . . . .

I can send you translations of the captions on the pictures if you wish. The book Iosagan is available in translation. The script used in the 1907 edition is the old gaelic script based on the ancient manuscripts.

Yours sincerely,
Tomas Maher
Tallaght, Dublin

Notes:
Special thanks to Wendy & Gordon Hawksley, of Sheffield, England, and Tomas Maher of Dublin, Ireland, all friends of the JSS Gallery, for sending me the images and notes.

1) Tomas Maher found the information and e-mailed me 8/11/2003

 
 


By:  Natasha Wallace
Copyright 1998-2003 all rights reserved
Created 8/11/2002
Updated 8/11/2003