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               /Joanna Mary Boyce

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JOANNA MARY BOYCE

       “Head of Mrs Eaton” oil on paper on linen, 1861

'Joanna Mary Boyce'(1831-1861) was a British painter of portraits and historical and literary subjects and the sister of watercolorist and landscape painter George Price Boyce. Both George and Joanna were friendly with and associated themselves with the Pre-Raphaelites. She was born in Maidi Hill, London on the 7th of December 1831. Her family was prosperous, her father was a pawnbroker and a former wine merchant. She was the third of five children.

Studies & Life Details: She studied at Cary's Academy(1849) and at Leigh's Academy(1852) in London. She also attended John Marshall's lectures on anatomy for artists. Her father and brother were both supportive of her art career and in 1852 She and her father visited Paris at the encouragement of her future husband Henry Tanford Wells who was a successful miniature painter and fellow artist. Her father passed away unexpectedly a year or so later which caused Joanna to spend less time pursuing her career as she was devastated by the loss and lacking his emotional encouragement and delight in her painting. She felt a responsibility to follow her mother's wishes who sometimes was less than enthusiastic about her daughter's career.

'I have some thought of giving up painting altogether, my painting room and all. I have no comfort at all in it now. Nothing gave dear Papa more pleasure than for me to work at it and nothing seems to annoy Mama so much.'

Her brother George, who had many connections with the Pre- Raphaelites, continued his support, and eventually Joanna resumed her devotion to her art. She returned to Paris while attending Thomas Couture's studio in the winter of 1855-6 where she drew and painted from the nude model. Out of necessity Joanna took a five month break from painting (February to June in 1857) to care for George, who had fallen ill, while he convalesced in Brighton. In June she toured France and Italy with Wells who was now her fiance. They were married on December 9th 1857 in Rome, after a three year engagement. 2 Nunn

Career Highlights: In 1855 Joanna entered ”Elgiva“ into the Royal Academy(both her brother and mother had encouraged her to do so in 1854, but she had declined due to distress over her father's death)... its acceptance was her first major success and her first exhibit at the RA. Critic, artist, poet and patron John Ruskin gave the painting high praise:

The expression in this head is so subtle, and so tenderly wrought, that at first the picture might easily be passed as hard or cold; but it could only so be passed, as Elgiva herself might have been sometimes seen, ----- by a stranger ---- without penetration of her sorrow. As we watch the face for a little time, the slight arch of the lip seems to begin to quiver, and the eyes fill with ineffable sadness and on-look of despair. The dignity of all the treatment---- the beautiful imagination of faint but pure color, place this picture, to my mind, among those of the very highest power and promise.

John Ruskin from the works of John Ruskin

Femininism and Family Life:

Joanna took time to establish her career before she married. She had doubts about marriage in general which she described in her letters to Wells as ' slavery and dependance'. She had friendships and associations with other independant women artists and feminist thinkers such as Jane Benham, Bertha Farwell, Jane Todhunter and painter Anna Mary Howitt. Despite these hesitations she and Wells married and had three children within a four year period. She painted a lovely portrait of her son and first child Sidney Wells which was rejected by the Royal Academy. It appears that the responsibilities of family life and of being a mother did inhibit the further development of her career.

Art Criticism: In 1855 George Jones family friend and editor of the Saturday Review invited Boyce to write several art reviews for the Exposition International. She completed these after cutting short her stay in Paris due to illness. NUNN

Quotes From Joanna on Painting and Art:

”In every work of art', she declared, 'it is the principle of beauty that should prevail, however severe the lesson enforced, or however great the horror of the scene depicted; for it alone steals the way into our hearts, and prepares a place where the truth it clothes may take root and blossom.' “

1 Joanna Mary Boyce from A Center on the Margins by Pamela Gerrish Nunn 1994

Colour is so essentially the painter's faculty', she avowed, 'that, in most cases, the absence of it in an artist neutralizes the effect of higher and more universal powers...probably no picture really noble in thought and feeling was ever actually bad in colour, for a great and true conception has a vivifying and purifying power over all with which it comes in contact

JB 4 Nunn

Death: A Talent Lost Joanna passed on July 15th 1861 from complications after the birth of her third child, Joanna Margaret. While she lay on her deathbed Joanna asked for her nurse to hold a glass so that she could see the sick room. She was most likely thinking and planning for a new painting of that subject. Upon her death George and husband Henry both asked artists(painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and sculptor John Henry Foley) to make likenesses. NUNN Joanna's writings revealed many plans for paintings that would never be realized. A tremendous talent was lost and a promising career cut short with the loss of her young life at the age of 29. Sidney also passed only a few years after his mother at the age of ten. Their early deaths were undoubtedly a traumatic transition for the entire family.

Pre-Raphaelite writer and critic William Michael Rossetti (brother of Dante Gabriel Rossetti )shared his thoughts on Joanna's passing many years after her death:

'All the artists whom I best knew and valued deplored her death as a real loss to art', he wrote in 1906; 'they had looked upon her as the leading hope for painting in the hands of a woman'

3 Nunn

Other Surviving Works: Many of Boyce's paintings were unfortunately destroyed in the bombing of Bath during WWII The remainder that have survived and that are able to be viewed online are pictured here.

Wells/Boyce, Joanna Mary (English painter, 1831-1861)

Bio and work at the Tate Gallery http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/joannamaryboyce/default.shtm

Auctions listed at artnet.com http://www.artnet.com/artist/565650/joanna-mary-boyce-wells.html

Links for Boyce and other women pre raphaelite painters... by Jan Marsh

http://www.librarything.com/work/book/47261949

Article by Pamela Gerrish Nunn

http://varoregistry.org/articles/prerap.html

These three follwing links are found at Artcyclopedia.com

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/boyce_joanna.html

Images from Women in Art Mystudios.com

http://www.mystudios.com/women/abcde/boyce.html

Bio excerpt at Artnet.com frome the Grove Dictionary of Art stating that she died in childbirth after marrying miniature painter Henry Tanworth Wells.

http://www.artnet.com/library/09/0911/T091108.asp

Union List of Artists names online... from the Paul J. Getty Trust

http://www.getty.edu/vow/ULANFullDisplay?find=&role=&nation=&page=1&subjectid=500009120

Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood at Artcyclopedia

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/pre-raphaelite.html

3 page Bio from the Dictionary of Women Artists

http://books.google.com/books?id=6_0Y0PALzQMC&pg=PA304&lpg=PA304&dq=johanna+mary+boyce&source=bl&ots=tTya- HFtUQ&sig=yfKZsO7ubXlkLtKTzVNoM8Wm74o&hl=en&ei=EoJ4SvrbCMfBlAerxJWZBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Link to these pages... brother and husband

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Price_Boyce

George Price Boyce at Artcyclopedia

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/boyce_george_price.html

Letters of George Price Boyce with other Pre Raphaelites... also check his diary according to Wikipedia page.