GWEN JOHN: A LOAN EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS    MAY 12 - JUNE 6, 2009
WITH A SELECTION OF WORKS ON PAPER
This exhibition will consist of eleven paintings by GWEN JOHN (1876-1939); four of which once belonged to John Quinn, the celebrated early 20th century collector and patron of GWEN JOHN.  JOHN’s paintings are extremely rare, and are seldom seen.Ten of the paintings on loan belong to private collections, while one comes from The Museum of Modern Art, New York.  The portrait from The Museum of Modern Art has not been publicly displayed since the 2004 exhibition Augustus John and Gwen John at Tate Britain, London, of which Cecily Langdale, a partner in Davis & Langdale Company, was a co-curator. 
There will also be a selection of about twenty works on paper from every period of GWEN JOHN’s career, most of which have just been released by her estate, which Davis & Langdale represents.  Among them are gouaches and watercolors of women and children in church, where she spent countless hours sketching; and drawings of peasant children, from a stay in Brittany.  There will also be cat studies, for which JOHN is particularly well known.  
GWEN JOHN is one of the foremost British artists of the twentieth century.  Born in Wales, she was the sister of the also famous artist Augustus John.  After studying at the Slade School in London, she spent her entire adult life in France.  Her work is represented in virtually every major museum in Britain, including Tate Britain, London; the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; and the National Museum of Wales. Cardiff. In America, her pictures are in such museums as the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art., .New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC;  the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts; and both the Yale Art Gallery and the British Art Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Cecily Langdale is the author of Gwen John: with a Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings and a Selection of the Drawings, published by Yale University Press in 1987.

Woman with short hair and bangs wearing blue scarf and mauve dress in front of grey wall
Girl with a Blue Scarf
Oil on canvas
16 1/4 x 13 inches
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Nelson A. Sears in memory of Mrs. Millicent A. Rogers 1963
Woman seated, wearing blue dress and necklace with hands folded in lap
Portrait of a Young Woman Wearing a Locket
Oil on canvas mounted on plywood
13 7/8 x 10 7/8 inches
Private Collection
Seated woman wearing grey dress and blue bow, facing slightly left
Girl in pink dress with hands filded in lap with vase of flowers on table in foreground and bookshelf in background
Head of girl with brown hair facing left
Girl in Rose
Oil on canvas, 18 ¼ x 14 ¼ inches
Probably painted late 1910s
Private Collection
Seated Woman Wearing a Blue Bow
Oil on canvas, 16 ¼ x 13 inches
Probably painted late 1910s-early 1920s
Private Collection
Head of a Girl
Oil on canvas mounted on board, 6 3/8 x 4 5/8 inches
Private Collection
Black cat laying on its side on tan paper
Two women wearing black and black hats in church, one seated and one standing

Sleeping Black Cat, Head to Right
Gouache on paper, 6 15/16 x 8 5/8 inches [irreg.]
Stamped (at lower right): Gwen John [estate stamp]
Probably executed in the late 1910s - early 1920s
Two Hatted Women in Church
Gouache on paper, 8 5/8 x 6 3/4 inches
Stamped (at lower left): Gwen John [estate stamp]
Probably executed during the 1920s
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NEW YORK, NY 10021
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