12651

Portrait drawing

Mrs John M. Davies, née Norah Meade 1918

Head and shoulders only, left full face looking towards the viewer, wearing a nurse’s headdress, her uniform just indicated

Graphite on board, 35.5 x 24 cm (14 x 9 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: In souvenir / to my sympathetic nurse / P. A. de László / 1918 Aug.  

Private Collection

The present drawing was made during the artist’s internment [10491]. Arrested in the autumn of 1917 on suspicion of being an enemy alien, de László was initially sent to Brixton Prison and later in the year to Holloway Internment Camp in Islington. In May 1918, on account of his health, he was moved from Holloway to a nursing home in Ladbroke Gardens, Notting Hill, where he was kept under house arrest and allowed to see no-one but his wife and children.

De László was not allowed to paint or draw immediately after his arrest and then only permitted to use pencil and watercolour. His only subjects during his internment were his fellow detainees, and when under house arrest only his closest circle. To our knowledge, Nurse Norah Meade was the only woman de László portrayed during his stay at Ladbroke Gardens, apart from his wife Lucy.

Norah Meade was born on 6 June 1890 at Kilgariff, Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Ireland, the daughter of James and Catherine Meade. Her father was a farmer, his land comprising about a hundred acres with milking cows and sheep. He also grew corn, wheat and flax. Norah Meade left this rural upbringing in 1916 when she was twenty-six, determined as she was to nurse in London.  This was the time of the Easter Uprising and it was a great achievement in itself to travel to England.  She eventually became a Sister in the nursing profession and cared for the artist while he was in hospital.  

She married in London the Rev. John Mark Davies, a Presbyterian Church of Wales Minister, in about 1920.  Upon her marriage she gave up nursing and took up the demanding role of Minister’s wife, which she fulfilled with distinction in the pastorates of Dolgellau, North Wales (1922-29); Wallasey; Birmingham; Wrexham and Stockport.  They had a daughter, Kathleen (born 1923), who lived for only three days, and a son, David Geraint Mark Davies (born 19 November 1933).  They retired to Abergele, North Wales, in 1963.  

The sitter died on 11 December 1973 and she was buried, beside her husband, in Dolgellau Cemetery according to her wishes. At her funeral service, the officiating Minister, Rev. D. R. Lewis, said of her: “Strength and Honour were her clothing.” According to her son, those qualities, which can be discerned in de László’s drawing, summed up his mother’s character.

CC 2008