One of the best known Women of West Wales, Gwendolen Mary John was born in Haverfordwest in 1876. Nevertheless, her reputation as an artist has been often overshadowed by the fame and flamboyance of her brother Augustus. In spite of this, critical opinion now tends to view Gwen as the more talented of the two.

Gwen was said to have shown ‘a fervent passion for art from a very young age’ and grew up in Tenby, but left in 1895 to study art at the Slade School of Art (the only art school in Britain during this period that allowed female students). In the autumn of 1903 she travelled to France with Dorelia McNeill with the intention of eventually reaching Rome.  At Bordeaux they set off on a walking tour, carrying their art equipment with them.  This resulted in the two women spending their time having to sleep in fields and under haystacks and living on whatever income they could generate by selling portrait sketches along the way. They made it as far as Toulose and later travelled to Paris in 1904, where Gwen found work as an artist’s model. 

Here, she met the sculptor Auguste Rodin and began modelling for him.  He sculpted her, standing on one leg with the other raised and splayed; Gwen prided herself on being able to hold such an awkward pose for so long. The pair became lovers, despite a 36 year age gap (she was 27, he was 63) and she found her unconventional life with him liberating. She wrote to him ‘I was a little solitaire, no –one helped me or awoke me before I met you’. She also said ‘Everyone I have ever known before you have wanted to change me…but you have said that you do not want me to be different than I am’.  

It has been suggested that Gwen became almost obsessed with her partners and that this often unsettled them. In a letter to Ursula Thyrwhitt, she observed ‘after all when one is in love there are no such virtues as patience and humility because being in love means everything’. This potency of emotion is evident in much of her artwork and reveals how it was informed by her own intense emotional experiences.  

After Rodin died, Gwen began a relationship with her neighbour Vera Oumancoff. It has been argued that Gwen became introverted; narrowing her world to her religion, her cats and her painting.  However, the pairing may have brought an inner peace that endured for the rest of Gwen’s life and is arguably reflected in her work. An article in the Daily Telegraph (2001) states ‘Art historians have traditionally explained Gwen’s way of life – her self sufficiency, her poverty and reclusion, her intransigence towards other people – as personal eccentricity or whim.  But her latest biographer makes it very plain that it was precisely this obdurate refusal to conform to any socially acceptable female norm that enabled Gwen to compete as an artist on equal terms with men’.

Gwen John died in Dieppe in 1939. Her work has been shown as far afield as Hawaii, New York, California, Norway, Canada, Massachusetts and Vienna.

Ganed Gwendolen Mary John yn Hwlffordd ym 1876, un o fenywod enwocaf Gorllewin Cymru. Fodd bynnag, mae enwogrwydd a bywyd lliwgar ei brawd Augustus wedi bod yn gysgod dros enw da Gwen fel artist. Serch hynny, mae barn y beirniaid bellach yn tueddu i weld Gwen fel y mwyaf dawnus o’r ddau.

Dywedir iddi ddangos ‘diddordeb angerddol mewn gwaith celf o oedran ifanc iawn’. Cafodd ei magu yn Ninbych-y-pysgod, ond gadawodd ym 1895 i astudio celf yn Ysgol Gelf y Slade (yr unig ysgol gelf ym Mhrydain yn ystod y cyfnod hwn oedd yn derbyn merched yn fyfyrwyr). Yn ystod hydref 1903 aeth ar daith i Ffrainc gyda’i ffrind Dorelia McNeill gyda’r bwriad o gyrraedd Rhufain yn y pen draw. Yn Bordeaux aethant ar daith gerdded, gan gario eu hoffer celf gyda hwy. Arweiniodd hyn at y ddwy ferch yn treulio eu hamser yn gorfod cysgu mewn caeau ac o dan tas wair a byw ar ba incwm bynnag y gallent ei greu drwy werthu brasluniau o bortreadau ar hyd y ffordd. Fe wnaethant hyn cyn belled â Toulose, a theithio yn ddiweddarach i Baris ym 1904, lle cafodd Gwen waith fel model artist. 

Yma ym Mharis y cyfarfu â’r cerflunydd Auguste Rodin a dechrau modelu iddo.  Gwnaeth gerflun ohoni yn sefyll ar un goes a’r goes arall i fyny ac ar led; roedd Gwen yn ymfalchïo yn y ffaith ei bod wedi gallu sefyll yn y fath ystum am gyhyd. Daeth y pâr yn gariadon, er gwaethaf y gwahaniaeth oedran o 36 o flynyddoedd (roedd hithau’n 27 oed ac yntau yn 63 oed) a disgrifiodd ei hamser gydag ef yn falm i’w henaid.  Ysgrifennodd ato drwy ddweud ‘Roeddwn i’n byw yn fy myd bach fy hunan, doedd neb yn fy helpu i nac yn fy neffro i cyn i mi gwrdd â thi’. Dywedodd hefyd ‘Mae pawb yr wyf wedi’u hadnabod cyn ti eisiau fy newid i … ond rwyt ti wedi dweud nad wyt ti am i fi fod yn wahanol i’r hyn ydw i’. 

Awgrymwyd bod gan Gwen obsesiwn bron â’i phartneriaid a bod hyn yn aml yn peri chwithdod iddynt. Mewn llythyr at Ursula Thyrwhitt, dywedodd ‘wedi’r cyfan pan yw rhywun mewn cariad nid oes unrhyw rinweddau fel amynedd a gostyngeiddrwydd oherwydd mae bod mewn cariad yn golygu popeth’. Mae’r fath emosiwn tanbaid yn amlygu ei hun yn llawer o’i gwaith celf ac yn datgelu sut oedd ei phrofiadau emosiynol dwys ei hun wedi llywio ei gwaith.  

Ar ôl i Rodin farw, roedd Gwen wedi mynd yn fewnblyg iawn; yn neilltuo’i byd i’w chrefydd, ei chathod a’i phaentiadau.  Mae erthygl yn y Daily Telegraph (2001) yn nodi ‘Yn draddodiadol, mae haneswyr celf wedi egluro ffordd o fyw Gwen – ei bywyd hunanddibynnol, ei thlodi a’i hencilio, ei diffyg anwylder tuag at bobl eraill – fel bywyd ecsentrig neu fympwyol. Ond mae ei bywgraffydd diweddaraf yn ei gwneud yn glir iawn mai’r cyndynrwydd afresymol hwn i wrthod cydymffurfio ag unrhyw norm benywaidd oedd yn dderbyniol yn gymdeithasol oedd wedi galluogi Gwen i gystadlu fel artist ar delerau cyfartal â dynion’.

Bu farw Gwen John yn Dieppe ym 1939. Mae ei gwaith wedi’i arddangos mewn llefydd mor bell i ffwrdd â Hawaii, Efrog Newydd, Califfornia, Norwy, Canada, Massachusetts a Vienna.