The Camden Town Group in Context

Stanislawa de Karlowska (fig.1), known to her family and friends as ‘Stasia’,1 was not a member of the Camden Town Group, a male-only exhibiting body, but was quickly elected in early 1914 to its successor, the London Group, which did not exclude women.2 Yet her work, which compares with that of her husband Robert Bevan, relates closely to what is thought of as Camden Town painting, using a modern post-impressionist style with bright colours to depict the local urban environment,3 the growing industrial landscape,4 and the countryside.5 Karlowska’s work was also inspired by her Polish heritage.6 The flat perspectives, intense colours, elongated figures and dream-like atmosphere of her paintings correspond somewhat with the stylised nature of Eastern European folk art, inviting comparison with other modern artists also drawing on folk-art traditions such as the Russian-born Marc Chagall (1887–1985)7 and the Polish Zofia Stryjeńska (1891–1976).

Stanislawa de Karlowska was born on 8 May 1876 at the family estate at Szeliwy, near the town of Lowicz in Russian-occupied Poland (fig.2).8 Her father, Alexander de Karlowski, was a Polish patriot who had fought in struggles for independence under the famous General Bem in 1848 and 1849, and taken part in the uprising of 1863, for which he reputedly ‘endangered his life and suffered considerable financial loss’.9 Karlowska’s son, Robert A. Bevan, said that her father and her brothers-in-law could best be described as ‘squirearchs’:

Karlowska studied art in Warsaw and Cracow before moving to Paris in 1896 to join the Académie Julian.11 One of her professors, the French figure painter Jules Lefebvre (1836–1911), wrote an end-of-term letter of recommendation for the young artist describing her ‘aptitude spéciale’ (special aptitude).12

Shortly after finishing at the Académie, Karlowska was invited to be the bridesmaid of her Polish friend and fellow student, Janina Flamm, who was marrying the British painter Eric Forbes Robertson (1865–1935). Robertson had been a close friend of Robert Bevan for over fifteen years. Karlowska and Bevan met at the wedding held in the Church of St Helier in Jersey on 17 July 1897, and their relationship developed quickly thereafter.

On his return to his family estate at Horsgate in Cuckfield, Sussex, Bevan began a series of twelve impassioned letters to Karlowska, who had returned home to Poland.13 Writing in their common language of French, in the first letter on 25 July, Bevan said that ‘la nuit après ton départ, j’ai pleuré, pleuré à chaudes larmes’ (the night after you left, I wept, wept hot tears), and invites her to call him ‘Bob’, calling her ‘Ma très, très chère Stasia’ (My very, very dear Stasia).14 On receiving a letter from Bevan in which he proposed to visit her in Poland that October, Karlowska wrote in phonetic French, ‘Je n’ai peu pas même t’ai dire quel joie tu me fais de venir si tôt’ (I cannot express how much joy you give to me by coming here so soon) and that ‘J’ai compte déjà les jours qui nous separt’ (I have already started counting the days we are apart). Further expressing her love, she wrote, ‘Tu sais quand je pense que bientôt nous serons ensemble, je suis tellement heureuse que je n’ai peu pas t’exprimer le sentiment que j’en ai’ (You know when I think that we will soon be together, I am so happy that I cannot express to you the feeling I have about it).15

Bevan decided he could not wait any longer to see Stasia again and, according to one report by their friend Marjorie Lilly, he took no heed of her instructions on how to enter Russian-occupied Poland:

The two were married on 9 December 1897 in Warsaw, less than five months after their first meeting.17

The couple moved to England, although Karlowska was not familiar with the language. They initially lived at Horsgate with Bevan’s family and then at 3 Buxton Road in Brighton from 1898, where Bevan might have produced the lithograph of Karlowska, The Artist’s Wife 1898 (private collection).18 The couple finally settled at 14 Adamson Road in Swiss Cottage in 1900 where they lived for the rest of Bevan’s life (fig.3). Karlowska gave birth to their children at Horsgate: Edith Halina, called ‘Halszka’, on 28 December 1898 and Robert Alexander, called ‘Bobby’, in March 1901. Bevan painted Stasia and Halszka standing outside her Polish family home in The Gate at Szeliwy 1901 (private collection),19 and portraits of Karlowska in The Feathered Hat 1915 (private collection)20 and Stanislawa Bevan (née de Karlowska) 1920 (National Portrait Gallery, London).21

Karlowska began exhibiting with the Women’s International Art Club soon after 1900.22 The club had evolved out of the Paris Art Club, which had been set up in 1898 and required members ‘to have studied in Paris, to be women and do strong work’.23 When the name was changed to the WIAC in 1900, the requirements for membership were redefined to include ‘all women artists whose work attains the necessary standard of artistic merit’.24 It remained a club that aspired to be at the forefront of modern artistic activity. In a 1910 review, the art critic Huntly Carter singled Karlowska’s work out for mention:

Karlowska also sent in five works, as did Bevan, to be exhibited at the first Allied Artists’ Association show in 1908. Her work was again singled out by Carter in a 1910 review of the AAA, writing that ‘Love and sincerity are apparent ... in the tender, subtle harmonies of S. de Karlowska’.26 It was through the AAA that Karlowska and Bevan first became acquainted with Harold Gilman and Spencer Gore, who invited Bevan to 19 Fitzroy Street after seeing his work. Although Karlowska was not a member of the Fitzroy Street or Camden Town Groups, she was friends with many of the members and inspired portraits by Gilman (figs.4 and 5) and Gore.27 She went on to exhibit with the London Group for many decades after her election in January 1914.

Karlowska and Bevan had wide-ranging connections. Bobby later recalled that:

Karlowska and Bevan were particularly supportive of the impoverished French sculptor Henri Gaudier (1891–1915) and his partner who posed as his sister, the Polish writer Sophie Brzeska (1871–1925), who was of a similar age to Stasia. Karlowska bought several drawings and sculptures by Gaudier, and when he went to war in 1914 she sent him cigarettes and chocolates.29 In his final letter to her on 1 January 1915, Gaudier asked Karlowska, ‘Since I might fall, would you be so kind as to ask for my news from Capt. Ménager ... to send to my sister’.30 When he died later that year, Karlowska broke the news to Sophie.31

Karlowska’s work remained secondary to her husband’s, at her own choosing. Every year he spent months away painting in the countryside, while Karlowska often remained at home looking after the children and the house.32 Bobby recalled about his mother’s relationship with his father:

On occasions Karlowska did travel out to meet her husband in the countryside (fig.6), where she painted works including At Church Staunton, Somerset c.1916 (University of Hull) and Luppitt Post Office c.1920 (private collection).34

Following Bevan’s death in 1925 Karlowska remained at Adamson Road, living on the top two floors, which had a purpose-built studio, and letting out the floors below.35 As well as painting, she also created prints, and exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers. Over the years she went travelling to Italy, France and Poland, painting, for example, The Quay at Binic, Brittany 1935 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford),36 as well as to many locations around England.

Karlowska held her first solo exhibition at the Adams Gallery in October–November 1935, selling six paintings.37 The preface for the catalogue was written by a former Camden Town Group member and then director of the Tate Gallery, James Bolivar Manson. He wrote that Karlowska ‘really needs no introduction to the discriminating part of the London public that cares about the art of painting’.38 Her work he found simple, sincere and individual, saying that ‘It is modern in feeling but it owes nothing to any school’.39 About her subject matter, he wrote, ‘She finds beauty in the most ordinary scenes: street corners, the backs of houses and so on and with such “motifs” she produces satisfying works of art.’40 The critic of the Times also appreciated the exhibition:

Following the exhibition, Berkeley Square was presented to the Tate Gallery (N04816).

Karlowska remained friends with Camden Town and Cumberland Market Group colleagues, including Malcolm Drummond, John Nash, Walter Sickert and particularly Charles Ginner.42 In 1936 she moved to a flat at 46 Russell Square, Bloomsbury, where her son was living at number 41, and the two hosted ‘At Homes’ to which artistic friends were invited.43 In 1939 Karlowska moved to nearby Torrington Square, but when war broke out she moved to Chester to live with her daughter at 15 Abbey Street. There she painted the wartime scene, Barrage Balloons 1939 (Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne).44

After the war she returned to London, living at 9 Collingham Road, Earls Court, still retaining her independence rather than agreeing to lodge at her son’s home, Boxted House in Essex.45 But by 1952 she had moved to a nursing home in Cadogan Place,46 and died on 9 December that year at the age of seventy-six, ‘a victim of the frightful fog’.47 She was buried in the Bevan family grave at Cuckfield. The painter, art teacher and friend of the Camden Town Group, Hubert Wellington, wrote to Bobby:

Karlowska had been such an integral part of the London Group that when she had previously sent in no work for two exhibitions, the secretary Eleanor Porter wrote to her in 1951:

Following her death, as part of the London Group show in 1953, a memorial display of four works was exhibited. Bobby wrote in the catalogue:

A memorial exhibition was organised by Bobby at the Adams Gallery in October 1954, following which the two other works in the Tate collection were presented: Fried Fish Shop c.1907 (N06238) and Swiss Cottage exhibited 1914 (N06239). The Anglo-Polish Society held an exhibition of Karlowska’s and Bevan’s work in March–April 1968 when their daughter Halszka was chair of the society,51 in appreciation of the couple’s support of Polish people.52 An exhibition of paintings was also held at the Maltzahn Gallery in June 1969.53