A World of Eternal Things: The Art of Gwen John

The Centre for Theology and the Arts is delighted to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of Gwen John (1876-1939) with a day of events.

Ashmolean Museum Visit, 11am and 11.30am

We are extremely grateful to Eliza Goodpasture, Research Fellow, Twentieth-Century British Drawings at the Ashmolean Museum for sharing her expertise on Gwen John’s life and drawing practice and showing some of the holdings in the Ashmolean’s collection. This is a wonderful opportunity and numbers are strictly limited. There will be two sessions: 11am and 11:30am.

Booking is essential – to book, please email senior.tutor@bfriars.ox.ac.uk with the subject line ‘Gwen John Visit’.

Places will be given on a first come, first served basis.

Blackfriars Hall, St Giles Oxford 2pm-4pm
Seminar – A World of Eternal Things: The Art of Gwen John

We are thrilled to have Lucy Wood, Senior Curator of Art at Museum Wales giving a talk, followed by a conversation with Dr Goodpasture.

In early 1922, Gwen John began referring to herself as ‘God’s little artist: a seer of strange beauties, a teller of harmonies, a diligent worker’ in notebooks that she filled with her thoughts about art, philosophical ideas, religious reflections and observations on the world around her. Whilst this is a clear statement of artistic intent, John’s philosophical and religious ideas have received relatively little attention. This may be due to the fact that religion, and perhaps especially Roman Catholicism, occupies a complicated position within histories of both feminism and modernism. John’s engagement with philosophical and theological thought is frequently associated with the sculptor Auguste Rodin. However, such an account does not adequately reflect the scope and independence of the artist’s intellectual life. In an undated note, John instructs herself to ‘Learn! Learn! Learn!’ Her notebooks contain copious extracts from philosophical and theological writings, works on art theory, newspaper supplements and the lives of the saints, alongside her own writing. Considered together, these materials suggest that her religious and philosophical interests were neither incidental to her artistic development nor reducible to the circumstances of her life. Drawing on this material, this seminar will explore the key ideas that informed John’s art and understanding of herself as an artist.

The seminar portion is open to everyone and no registration is required.

Speakers

Lucy Wood is Senior Curator of Art at Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales. She is co-curator of Gwen John: Strange Beauties (2026) and co-editor of the accompanying monograph. Previously, she was Project Curator at the British Museum of the exhibition Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic (2022), and Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary, at the National Portrait Gallery, where she curated exhibitions including Elizabeth Peyton: Aire and Angels (2019) and Njideka Akunyili Crosby: The Beautyful Ones (2018). She is a PhD candidate in Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Oxford and a board member of the Centre for Philosophy and the Arts, King’s College London.

Eliza Goodpasture is Research Fellow, Twentieth-Century British Drawings at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. She is also currently Guest Curator at the Charleston Trust, curating the exhibition ‘Ethel Sands: Dripping in Light.’ She was recently a Visiting Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art. She has taught at the Universities of York and Oxford and written for exhibition catalogues for Tate Britain, the Clark Institute of Art, Leamington Spa Art Gallery, and the Watts Gallery and Artists’ Village. She writes regularly about art for newspapers and magazines in the US and UK, including the Financial Times, The Guardian, Art in America, and ArtReview.

Venue: Ashmolean Museum - Beaumont Street Oxford, OX1 2PH United Kingdom

Contact:
Centre for Theology and the Arts
https://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/research/theology-and-arts/