Lucy Kemp-Welch

Lucy Elizabeth Kemp-Welch (20 June 1869 – 27 November 1958) was a British painter and teacher who specialized in painting working horses. She is best known for the paintings of horses in military service she produced during World War One and for her illustrations to the 1915 edition of Anna Sewell's Black Beauty.

Lucy Kemp-Welch
Born(1869-06-20)20 June 1869
Bournemouth
Died27 November 1958(1958-11-27) (aged 89)
Watford
NationalityBritish
EducationThe Herkomer School
Known forEquine artist

Biography

Early life

Lucy Kemp-Welch was born in Bournemouth, the first child of solicitor Edwin Buckland Kemp-Welch. She showed an early excellence in art and exhibited for the first time when she was 14 years old. After attending a local art school, in 1891 she and her younger sister Edith moved to Bushey to study at Hubert von Herkomer’s art school. As one of Herkomer's best and most favoured students, she was able to set up her own studio, in an old former inn known as 'Kingsley'. In due course Kemp-Welch took over the running of the Herkomer School in 1905 and ran it until 1926, first as the Bushey School of Painting and then, after relocating it to her own home, as the Kemp-Welch School of Animal Painting. After 1928 the school was run by Kemp-Welch's former assistant Marguerite Frobisher as the Frobisher School of Art.[1] While still a student Kemp-Welch had a painting, Gypsy Drovers taking Horses to a Fair shown at the Royal Academy in 1895.[1] Kemp-Welch received further public recognition in 1897 when her painting Colt-Hunting in the New Forest was also shown at the Royal Academy. The painting was purchased by the Chantrey Bequest for 500 guineas, and is now in the British national collection at the Tate.[2][3] In total, throughout her career Kemp-Welch had 61 paintings displayed at the Royal Academy.[4]

In 1914 Kemp-Welch became president of the Society of Animal Painters.[1] In 1915 she provided illustrations to an edition of Anna Sewell's Black Beauty and used Robert Baden-Powell's horse Black Prince as a model.[1] She had previously illustrated Round About, A Brighton Coach Office by M E King in 1896 and The Marking of Mathias in 1897.[5] As well as pictures of horses, Kemp-Welch painted other animals, flowers and landscapes. She also painted at least two Boer War scenes, In Sight':Lord Dundonald's dash on Ladysmith, 1901, (Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter), and Sons of the City (private collection). Both of these featured horses in military action and led to several significant commissions for her during World War One.

World War One
Artwork for Forward! Forward to Victory Enlist Now (1914)
The Straw Ride- Russley Park Remount Dep't, Wiltshire (Art.IWM ART3160)

In December 1914, Kemp-Welch was engaged by the British Parliamentary Recruiting Committee to paint the artwork for the famous army recruitment poster, Forward! Forward to Victory Enlist Now which she signed, 'L.K.W 1914.'[6]

During World War One women were employed at Army Remount Depots in training and preparing horses for military service. Kemp-Welch was commissioned by the Women's Work Section of the Imperial War Museum to paint a scene at the largest such depot, one staffed entirely by women, at Russley Park in Wiltshire.[7] The Museum authorities were unhappy with the painting, The Ladies Army Remount Depot, Russley Park, Wiltshire which Kemp-Welch first submitted but were aware of a larger and much better composition on the same subject that she had painted and intended to sell to a private client for £1,000. Kemp-Welch agreed that the second painting, The Straw-Ride- Russley Park, Remount Dep't Wiltshire was the better of the two and agreed to sell it to the IWM to forefill her commission. However she was unable to agree a fee with the Women's Work Section and after protracted discussions, donated it free of charge to the Museum.[8][9]

In 1916 Kemp-Welch sought and was given permission to visit the Royal Field Artillery camp at Bulford on Salisbury Plain. The officer in command of the camp allowed Kemp-Welch to set up an easel while eight batteries of horse artillery were continually ridden towards her so she could sketch the horse teams in movement at close quarters.[10] These sketches resulted in two large works, The Leaders of a Heavy Gun Team, now in the Royal Artillery Institution, and Forward the Horses.[11][12] These paintings were shown at the Royal Academy in 1917 and Forward the Horses was purchased by the Chantrey Bequest for the Tate. Although popular images at the time, these painting are not without their critics as they provided a heroic view of warfare but one at odds with the reduced role of horse artillery in an increasingly mechanised conflict.[11]

As well as Bulford Camp, Kemp-Welch also made studies at several other Royal Artillery camps, notably several in Hampshire near Winchester. The resulting pictures included Big Guns to the Front, an image of shire horses pulling guns through a snowy landscape, which was shown to great acclaim at the Royal Academy in 1918 and was purchased for the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff in 1921.[13]

Later life
The Ladies' Army Remount Dep't, Russley Park, Wiltshire, (1918) (Art.IWM ART 3094)

In 1924, for the Royal Exchange, Kemp-Welch designed and completed a large panel commemorating the work of women during World War One.[14] From 1926 onwards she focussed on depicting scenes of gypsy and circus life and spent several summers following Sanger's Circus, recording the horses.[15]

She resided in Bushey, Hertfordshire for most of her life and a major collection of her works is in Bushey Museum. They include very large paintings of wild ponies on Exmoor, galloping polo ponies, the last horse-launched lifeboat being pulled into a boiling sea, heavy working horses pulling felled timber and hard-working farm horses trudging home at the end of the day. The Lucy Kemp-Welch estate has been represented by Messum's Fine Art since 1975.

Her younger sister Edith, who died in 1941, was also an artist[16] as was her cousin Margaret Kemp-Welch (1874–1968). Like her sister, Edith Kemp-Welch also produced a poster for the British war effort, an image of Britannia with the slogan "Remember Scarborough".[17]

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References
  1. David Buckman (1998). Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 1, A to L. Art Dictionaries Ltd. ISBN 0 95326 095 X.
  2. Alicia Foster (2004). Tate Women Artists. Tate Publishing. ISBN 1-85437-311-0.
  3. Tate. "Catalogue entry for Colt hunting in the New Forest". Tate. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  4. Marion Whybrow (1994). St Ives 1883-1993 Portrait of an Art Colony. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1851491708.
  5. Simon Houfe (1996). The Dictionary of 19th Century British Book Illustrators. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1 85149 1937.
  6. Nigel Steel (Introduction) (2014). Posters of the First World War. Imperial War Museum. ISBN 978-1-904897-87-3.
  7. Kathleen Palmer (2011). Women War Artists. Tate Publishing/Imperial War Museum. ISBN 978-1-85437-989-4.
  8. Merion Harries & Susie Harries (1983). The War Artists, British Official War Art of the Twentieth Century. Michael Joseph, The Imperial War Museum & the Tate Gallery. ISBN 0 7181 2314 X.
  9. Catherine Speck (2014). Beyond the Battlefield, Women Artists of Two World Wars. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978 178023 374 1.
  10. A Historical Dictionary of British Women. Europa Publications. 1989. ISBN 1857432282.
  11. Richard Cork (1994). A Bitter Truth - Avant Garde Art and the Great War. Yale University Press & The Barbican Art Gallery.
  12. Tate. "Catalogue entry for Forward the Horses". Tate. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  13. National Museum Wales. "Big Guns to the Front". Art Collections Online. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  14. Cathy Hartley (Development Editor) (2003). A Historical Dictionary of British Women. Europa Publications. ISBN 1857432282.
  15. Frazer Ansell (22 January 2015). "Bushey artist Lucy Kemp-Welch's painting sells for more than £20,000". Watford Observer. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  16. Brian Stewart & Mervyn Cutten (1997). The Dictionary of Portrait Painters in Britain up to 1920. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1 85149 173 2.
  17. Imperial War Museum. "Remember Scarborough". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 31 December 2015.

Further reading
  • Harrington, P. (1993). British artists and war: The face of battle in paintings and prints 1700-1914. London: Greenhill. ISBN 1-85367-157-6
  • Messum, D. (1976). Life and Work of Lucy Kemp-Welch. London: Antique Collectors Club. ISBN 0-902028-43-X
  • Wortley, L. (1996). Lucy Kemp-Welch, 1869-1958: The Spirit of the Horse. London: Antique Collectors Club. ISBN 1-85149-252-6
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