* CATHLEEN SABINE MANN RP ROI THE MARCHIONESS OF QUEENSBERRY (BRITISH 1896 - 1959),
FLORAL STILL LIFE WITH RED GLOVES
oil on canvas, signed and dated 1944
61cm x 51cm (approximately 24 x 20 inches, image size)
Framed (original)
Note 1: The verso of the canvas holds another painting of a continental coastal village.
Note 2: Cathleen Mann was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 31 December 1896 to the Scottish painter Harrington Mann RE RP NEAC NPS (Glasgow 1864 - 1937 New York), the second of his three daughters. Her mother was the American portraitist Florence Sabine Pasley. Harrington Mann gave Cathleen painting lessons in his London studio, as did the portrait painter (Dame) Ethel Walker. Walker continued to tutor Cathleen even while the young artist was studying at Slade School of Fine Art in London. She later trained in Paris. Walker remained an influence on Mann and the two often exhibited together. Mann's art career was put on hold owing to the First World War, when she worked with an ambulance unit. By 1924 Mann had two portraits in the Royal Academy and exhibited there regularly from 1930. Cathleen was both talented and beautiful and on 18th March 1926 she married Francis Douglas, 11th Marquess of Queensberry, becoming his second wife. The marriage led some newspapers to refer to Mann as "the painting peeress", a term she apparently disliked. They had two children, David Douglas, 12th Marquess of Queensberry and a daughter. During the Second World War, Mann was appointed an official war artist, painting portraits of officers such as Adrian Carton de Wiart and the Allied commanders. As well as being reproduced in several publications including "Time Magazine", many of these paintings were exhibited in London and then toured America. She exhibited from 1920 at the Royal Academy, Glasgow Institute, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Royal Scottish Academy and the Society of Women Artists amongst others, and held a number of solo exhibitions including at Arthur Tooth Gallery, 1932, the Leicester Galleries, 1937, Reid and Lefevre Gallery, 1938 and 1954. Mann was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. During the 1930s Mann also engaged successfully in costume design for numerous British films. Her work included The Iron Duke (1935) starring George Arliss and Things to Come (1937) starring Raymond Massey. Many of her costume design drawings are held by the Victoria & Albert Museum (London). She and Francis Douglas divorced in 1946 and in the same year she married John Robert Follett, the son of Brigadier-General Gilbert Burrell Spencer Follett, who had been killed in action during the First World War, and Lady Mildred Follet, daughter of Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore. Follett was a racehorse owner, but died in 1953, aged 46, shortly before Francis Douglas also died. The two deaths seemed to have caused Cathleen to have a nervous breakdown, but she continued to paint. She befriended the artist Sir Matthew Smith and was influenced by his work. During the last ten years of her life she experimented with abstract art, drawings of nude models and sculpture. Cathleen committed suicide on 9th September 1959 by taking an overdose of sleeping pills in her studio on Montpelier Walk, Brompton. Her son said she had recently been diagnosed with another attack of tuberculosis and she left a note stating that she was very worried about the illness. In 1960 a major retrospective exhibition of her work was held at the O’Hana Gallery, London. Cathleen Mann's paintings are held in numerous public collections including: The UK Government Art Collection, The French Government Art Collection, The National Galleries of Scotland, Glasgow Museums & Galleries, The National Portrait Gallery (London), The Imperial War Museum, The Royal Air Force Museum, Ferens Gallery, Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum, Sheffield Museum, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Birmingham University, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, The National Trust, Bolton Museum & Art Gallery and The Victoria & Albert Museum. Her work is also held in numerous noted private collections of the British nobility and in the USA. Following her death, this epitaph appeared in The Times: Mr. H. Rowntree Clifford writes - "Many hundreds of people living in the dock district of south West Ham during the September bombing of 1940 owe their lives to the determination and courage of the late Cathleen Mann. As Marchioness of Queensberry she used her name and the strength of her personality to break through official difficulties and to commandeer transport by both road and rail to carry numbers of helpless and in some cases crippled people to safety. I remember the humble duty she offered to those who were deprived of their families."