The forgotten female artists who taught sitters to smile

BRITAIN’S first female professional artists whose work was assumed to be painted by men are to be celebrated in an exhibition for the first time.

Within a few years of their deaths the art of Mary Beale, Joan Carlile and Anne Killigrew was forgotten, but now their pioneering contribution will finally be recognised.

Dr Bendor Grosvenor, the exhibition’s curator, said: “It’s such a shame these artists have been largely ignored, not least because they were so good.

“For too long, our view of British art in the 17th century has been dominated by male artists.”

Beale, Carlile and Killigrew made their mark, bringing a different perspective to their craft during the turbulent period that followed the Civil War and Restoration.

Beale was the first portrait painter to encourage her sitters to smile and unlike her male contemporaries did not paint the King’s courtesans in varying states of undress. “There is a sense of sympathy in the way she sees her sitters,” said Dr Grosvenor.

For a brief period the women were lauded, and when Killigrew, whose subjects included James II, died from smallpox in 1685, aged 25, the then Poet Laureate John Dryden wrote: “Still with a greater blaze she shone, And her bright soul broke out on ev’ry side.”

Their renown did not outlive their deaths, however. As their paintings carried no signatures, in common with the practice of the day, it was easy for dealers, auctioneers and buyers to assume they were painted by men and attribute their work to male artists, such as the court painter Peter Lely.

Bright Souls: The Forgotten Story of Britain’s First Female Artists, is at Lyon & Turnbull, Connaught Street, London, from June 24 to July 6.