5644

Study portrait
Evelyn Frances Hill 1915
Half-length to the left, in three-quarter profile, wearing a blue chiffon scarf round her neck and gold hooped earrings
Oil on canvas, 86.5 x 61 cm (34 x 24 in.)
Inscribed lower right: To my dear Niece Evelyn / 1915 March / P. A. de László [pencil]

Laib L7989(832) / C12(22) Mrs. Joet Hill
NPG Album 1912-16, p. 13

Private Collection

The sitter was a niece of the artist's wife, Lucy Guinness. She was a tall, imposing young woman with striking red hair. She inherited this trait from the Guinness family and the colour of her hair is wonderfully complimented by the light blue of her scarf. The present portrait was given by de László to the sitter as a wedding present. Lucy mentioned the picture in her diary, 21st March: “P. finished Evelyn’s sketch this mg – It was done in 2 sittings – lovely!”^[1]

The artist painted the sitter’s husband, Captain Arthur Jowett in 1919 [5855] and her sister Constance twice, in 1916 [5640] and in 1922 [5642]. He also made a portrait drawing of her mother, Mrs Charles Hill née Ethel Mary Guinness, in 1905 [7967].

Evelyn Frances Hill was born in Rockhampton, Queensland, on 21 May 1888, the elder daughter of Ethel Mary Guinness (the artist's wife, Lucy Guinness's eldest sister) and Charles Frederick Hill, of Elgalla, Queensland. She was educated in England, at a French-speaking school in Bournemouth. On 10 April 1915, she married Captain Arthur Craven Jowett of Coverdale and Wilsden, Queensland, who served with the Northumberland Fusiliers and later the Royal Flying Corps. At the end of the First World War she moved with him to Australia, where he helped to run his father's sheep farms in New South Wales and Queensland. Together they had four children: a daughter, Doreen (born 1918) and three sons, Humphrey (born 1921), Eric (born 1926) and Edmund (born 1929). She was a proud mother and a great letter writer. In contrast to her husband who only returned to England twice after the First World War, Evelyn made regular trips to England. She died in Melbourne on 16 March 1975.

PROVENANCE:

Given by the artist to the sitter

LITERATURE:

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 199

•László, Lucy de, 1915 diary, private collection

Pd'O 2013