Hilda Gerarda van Stockum
, Irish, 1908-2006
Title
Portrait of Evie Hone (1894-1955)MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions
79 x 51 cm
Signedlower left: H V S
Credit LinePurchased, 1977
Object numberNGI.4204
DescriptionEvie Hone was born into a Dublin banking and artistic family. She studied first in London, where she met Mainie Jellett. In 1920 she went to Paris, and was joined there by Jellett the following year. They studied with André Lhote, and then with Albert Gleizes, who had developed a form of cubist abstract painting. Hone worked as a painter until the 1930s, when she began to use stained-glass. She joined the studio of An Túr Gloine and worked there until 1943. In 1944, she opened her own studio at Marley Grange, Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin, becoming a leading exponent of stained-glass art. She drew on several sources, including her cubist training, the work of early Italian painters, the windows in French cathedrals, the French artist Georges Rouault (1871-1958) and medieval Irish figurative carving. Hone's best known commission was the great window at Eton College Chapel (1949-52). She died in Dublin. Dutch-born Hilda van Stockum moved to Ireland in 1924, where she enrolled at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art before going to Amsterdam to study at the Rijks Academie of Fine Art. She frequently visited Hone, with whom she shared an interest in religion and spirituality.
This informal portrait presents Hone as a calm, reflective person. Her clasped hands show the arthritic condition from which she suffered.