6371

Mrs Claud Mullins, née Gwen Brandt 1925

Seated three-quarter length to the left, looking to the right, wearing a deep pink brocade dress, a white organza stole with a frilled edge around her shoulders, and gold and amethyst earrings

Oil on canvas, 90.2 x 69.9 cm (35 ½ x 27 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1925. VI.   

Laib L11762 (111) / C18 (35A): Mrs Mullins

NPG 1919-25 Album, p. 6

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 45: Gwendolen Mullins 10. VI. 25. 

Private Collection

The present portrait was commissioned by Gwen Brandt’s parents to celebrate her marriage to Claud Mullins, which took place on 28 May 1925. Jean Garmany Brandt [3591], the sitter’s mother, was adamant that the portrait should be painted prior to the ceremony, but de László was extremely busy, and this deadline proved difficult to meet. On 15 May 1925, de László explained to her: “Up to the moment of writing I have been hoping that I might still be able to fulfill my promise to paint Miss Brandt’s portrait before the 23rd, otherwise I would have written before, but just to-day I have come to the decision that it will not be possible for me to do so. Various portraits that were begun some time ago, have now to be finished rather unexpectedly by certain dates and I would not like to have to paint your daughter’s picture in haste […] I did a portrait, in bridal dress, of Edwina Mountbatten [3178] after the wedding.”^[1]

For de László to cite the precedent, Jean Brandt must have stressed how very important it was to her that the portrait should be completed before the wedding. However, judging by her reply, this did not satisfy Gwen’s mother: “you have no idea how desperately disappointed I am, that you have not been able to paint Gwen. I so longed for a portrait of her before her marriage - & hoped you could sketch her at least, even if you could not finish the portrait until afterwards. There is something in a girl’s face – before she marries – one never gets again – and however lively she may be – the girl, is gone – and I so longed to keep just that girl face of Gwen’s forever. I suppose you could not sketch her face and finish the detail afterwards without changing the expression –could you?”^[2]

It seems that de László could not resist this desperate plea, and made arrangements to clear his diary on 26 and 27 May, the eve of the wedding, so that he could “finish the head entirely and […] leave the rest for later on”.^[3] The artist added that he was much looking forward to “painting a very picturesque portrait in her bridal attire.”^[4] The sitter’s dress in the portrait was one she had made herself from a piece of French brocade she had purchased for its particular qualities, while the chiffon stole was provided by de László.

De László succeeded in painting Gwen’s head and shoulders by 12 June, before leaving for the continent, and completed the picture before the month ended. The artist’s correspondence reveals that his honorarium for Gwen’s portrait was £315.^[5] De László also painted the sitter’s father [3585] and sister Jean [3600].

(Elizabeth) Gwendolen ‘Gwen’ Brandt, was born on 10 April 1904, the younger of the two daughters of Augustus Brandt and his wife Jean Champion Garmany. Augustus Brandt was of Russian-German origin, and a senior partner in the family merchant bank, William Brandt’s Sons & Company, while his wife Jean was an American from Savannah, Georgia, who persisted in dressing her daughters all in white, “Southern style”, even though the Brandts divided their lives between Queen’s Park Gardens, in Kensington, London and Surrey. The English climate and resulting mud meant that the girls’ clothes had to be changed three times a day by their personal maid when they were in the country.

Augustus Brandt kept an open house for every member of the family. His home was therefore frequently animated by the visits of cousins from Germany, Russia and America. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, a number of relatives escaped and lived with the Brandts, some for several years. Gwen’s favourite cousin was Hermann, who would soon be better known as Bill Brandt, the famous photographer. She did not care much for elegant society and, much aware of her father’s sadness in not having a son, she did her best to act like one: she climbed trees, played golf, rode horses, and even ventured to say she would like to go into the family bank. When Gwen left school, she travelled to Italy, where she developed a passion for art. Back in England, she began to paint and draw. Always interested in materials and fabrics, Gwen attended a course at the London School of Weaving. This marked the beginning of a lifelong involvement with the crafts.

On 28 May 1925, aged twenty-one, she married Claud Mullins (1887-1968), her senior by seventeen years. He had served in the 1st World War in Mesopotamia and in India. At the time of their wedding he was a barrister, but he later became a Stipendiary Magistrate in London, and the author of noted works on prison reform. There were three children of the marriage: Ann (born 1926), Barbara (born 1927) and Edwin (born 1933). At the onset of the Second World War, she assisted in the occupational therapy work in Horton Hospital in Epsom, setting up looms for the soldiers, and putting some discarded book-binding equipment back into use. In 1948, her family moved to Graffham in Sussex, where she founded a book-binding group for local people, which developed into a village crafts workshop. Four years later, in 1952, she set up the successful Graffham Weavers with her younger daughter Barbara, becoming one of the leading figures in the modern British crafts movement, both as a weaver and a patron. She had exhibitions of her weaving in London, Edinburgh and Paris. After Claud Mullins’s death in 1968, Gwen subsequently devoted herself even more to her work. She founded an association, Craftsman’s Mark, to help hand-weavers develop the use of undyed wools, and the Gwen Mullins Trust, to finance training and apprenticeship schemes for young craftspeople. She was also closely involved in the setting up of the Crafts Advisory Committee, which developed into the Crafts Council.  In 1975, she was appointed O.B.E. in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the crafts. Some of her rugs are now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Gwen Mullins died in Midhurst, Sussex, on 20 January 1997.

PROVENANCE:

Mr and Mrs. Augustus Brandt;

Mrs. Claud Mullins, the sitter;

By descent in the family;

Sold at auction at Christie’s King Street, 5 June 2008

LITERATURE:

•DLA057-0051, letter from de László to Mrs. Brandt, 15 May 1925

•DLA057-0053, letter from Mrs. Brandt to de László, 18 May 1925

•DLA057-0052, letter from de László to Mrs. Brandt, 19 May 1925

With our grateful thanks to Emma Dally for her help with the biography

CC 2010