Gwen raverat biography
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Gwen Raverat
"The best of these Darwins is that they are cut out of rock - three taps is enough to convince one how immense is their solidarity." So wrote Virginia Woolf affectionately of Gwen Raverat, the granddaughter of Charles Darwin. In this biography, France Spalding creates a moving portrait of Gwen's character, her life and her art. It begins in late-Victorian Cambridge, which Gwen herself amusingly described in her childhood memoir "Period Piece". But Frances Spalding looks behind and beyond the pages of this much-loved book. She explores Gwen's Darwin inheritance, her conflicts when she moves beyond her home environment to enter the Slade School of Art, her encounter with Post-Impressionism, and her friendships with Stanley Spencer, Rupert Brooke, and members of the Bloomsbury set. huvud to her life is her husband, the Frenchman Jacques Raverat, who emerges as a levande, courageous personality. At each scen, Gwen's artistic creativity is interwoven with her relationships
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'The best of these Darwins is that they are cut out of rock - three taps is enough to convince one how immense is their solidarity.' So wrote Virginia Woolf affectionately of Gwen Raverat, the granddaughter of Charles Darwin.
In this first full biography, Frances Spalding looks beyond the artist Gwen Raverat's childhood memoir; Period Piece, and creates a fascinating and moving portrait of Charles Darwin's granddaughter. She explores her Darwin inheritance; her conflicts when she moves beyond her home environment to enter the Slade School of Art; her encounter with post-Impressionism; and her friendships with Stanley Spencer, Rupert Brooke and members of the Bloomsbury set. At each stage, Gwen's artistic creativity is interwoven with her relationships and circumstances. She helps revive the medium of wood-engraving and with her husband, Jacques Raverat, celebrates the South of France in the art they produce while living in Venice.
Drawing on a huge cache of unpublished
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Gwen Raverat
English wood engraver (1885–1957)
Gwendolen Mary "Gwen" Raverat (née Darwin; 26 August 1885 – 11 February 1957), was an English wood engraver who was a founder member of the Society of Wood Engravers.[1] Her memoir Period Piece was published in 1952.
Biography
[edit]Gwendolen Mary Darwin was born in Cambridge in 1885; she was the daughter of astronomer Sir George Howard Darwin and his wife, Lady Darwin (née Maud du Puy). She was the granddaughter of the naturalist Charles Darwin and a first cousin of poet Frances Cornford (née Darwin).[citation needed]
She married the French painter Jacques Raverat in 1911. They were active in the Bloomsbury Group and Rupert Brooke's Neo-Pagan group until they moved to the south of France, where they lived in Vence, near Nice, until his death from multiple sclerosis in 1925. They had two daughters: Elisabeth (1916–2014), who married the Norwegian politician Edvard Hambro, and Sophie Jane (1919–201