Yevonde: Life in Colour, National Portrait Gallery, London

Cultures: Arts Reviews and Views by Susan Tailby

5 min readOct 13, 2023

Yevonde, 1940. Self-portrait incorporating a Surrealist style, Yevonde poses in a gold frame ready for her close up, with her Hecate ‘goddess’ photo overhead. She is surrounded by props linked to her photography including butterflies and the colour solution tools of her trade.

Lady Dorothy Warrender as Ceres 1935. She glows golden against orange gauzey backdrops. She has a wreath of corn as a headdress, and her dress is golden satin. Her cornucopia drips golden apples and fruits.

Colour-full and much more than just society ladies ethereally impersonating goddesses, this comprehensive exhibition toured through the life, styles and techniques of the portrait and advertising photographer Madame Yevonde.

Range was key to the works here. I was intrigued to learn that Madame Yevonde was born Yevonde Philone Cumbers, adopting Madame Yevonde or Yevonde as her professional name. She had an equally enchantingly named sister Verena. How did she and her sister get such romantic and unusual names? (I’ll never know)…

Well educated (moving from governess at home to day and boarding schools) and a Suffragette, Yevonde’s work highlights the need of women to be useful, particularly as there was so many ‘surplus’ women after World War One and the influenza epidemics, and the opening up of professional roles for women (at long last).

Gaining an apprenticeship with Laillie Charles, Yevonde had a wonderful role model of portrait photographer to emulate; which she did fully in 1914, aged 21, establishing her own studio and her reputation by inviting well known public figures to sit for her for free. In early works we see some self-potraits showing her working hard on getting a gimmick — including her pet cat and Mr Penguin toy as well as her use of framing and lighting/shadows. Using beautiful and dramatic lighting, Yevonde captured her sitter’s essence as well as the sophisticated image they wanted to present. Best of all, everyone looks glamourous; although she never others. Props and beautifully dramatic backgrounds became key to her success as well as capturing goddesses at a society themed party or being able to photograph peers of the realm in their coronation guest finery.

Lady Alexandra Haig, daughter of General Haig, 1924. Had the famous ear phone hair style popular at the time. Looking to the side, she looks both young and serious in a pussy cat bow blouse.

Cathleen Mann, 1932. The sitter’s smart pink hat at an angle and pink suit jacket are matched by the pastels in the background. With a bow necked spotted blouse in maroon (which matches her dark lipstick) this modern woman means business, with her hands on her hips. There is a hint of sadness too amongst all the roccoco pastels.

Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, 1935 in her wedding dress. The image here doesn’t do it justice — it needs to be seen in person to appreciate all the tones and textures. In a flowing white satin wedding dress and soft long veil, the bride is surrounded by a mass of white lilies and roses, with a red rose bouquet with a turquoise ribbon next to her feet on some steps. She has a huge bouquet of white roses.

It was the Vivex colour process which allowed Yevonde to burst into new creative playful expressions — showing red upon red upon red, and using colour to highlight and focus, as well as play with surrealism. Colour photography was seen as vulgar compared to monochrome and received a hostile social reception — Yevonde persevered, seeing colour photography as good for women. Art was also good for women as Yevonde incorporated mythological and Victorian/Pre-Raphaelite influences in terms of colour, texture and backdrops.

Joan Maude, 1932. Red upon red upon red! Waved red hair against a red backdrop and a red silky blouse, as well as popping red lipstick and orangey red rouged cheeks. Beautiful use of colour and soft upward look.

She branched out into advertising and fashion magazine covers, artistic nudes, autobiography writing, and even (fascinatingly) photographing several covers for James Bond novels. Playful and artistic, she kept her sense of humour to the end and never stopped being original. (Be original or die!) Unexpectedly she photographed workers fitting out the RMS Queen Mary on location, capturing them with great sympathy, much as she did with newspaper sellers.

Marguerite Strickland, 1935 — published in the Sketch Magazine, 1935. A woman poses side on, face forward with curled and waved dark hair, popping red nails and a large turquoise ring, in a red blouse. She is using Pampas grass as feathery fans, sorting of peeping through it and pushing it aside to the left. A wonderful example of the Tri-colour separation technique and Yevonde’s love of colour.

Lord and Lady Louis Mountbatten, 1937 — resplendently dressed in their coronation guest finery. Yevonde said that men struggled to look more than as though they were playing at dressing up and preferred to photograph women, generally. Here she also celebrates a marriage. Lord Mountbatten patriotically beribboned, frilled and be-medaled gazes adoringly (he’s smiling captivated and dreamy) at his wife Lady Mountbatten, who shines (literally), She is a silvery shiny bias cut dress, dazzling.

George Bernard Shaw, 1937. He holds his hands infront of his face as though thinking or about to speak. Lit by blue light on one side of his face, but the emphasis is on the writer’s hand.

Susan Bligh as Calypso, 1935. The photo is velvety dark apart from a side lit woman’s face and the bright light of the daisy topped fascinator she wears. A lovely sort of longing, pensive waiting.

Susan Bligh as Calypso, 1935. Her face is a halo of light, as she is against a velvety dark backdrop. Wearing a fascinator crown of large daisies and holding a daisy wistfully in one hand against very 1930’s red lips and looks inquisitively upwards.

Paul Robeseon, 19133. He glows, looking forward, resting his head on his hand like Rodin’s The Thinker, as the background fades into a blur.

Aileen Balcon as Minerva 1935. Strikingly modern in this classical allusion. A helmeted Minerva clutches a pistol and prepares for war as her owl looks out, against a backdrop reminiscent of the battlefields of World War One.

Mrs Longdon as Persephone, 1935. Again she is bathed in velvet darkness, which pushes her head encompassing floral head dress and curled wave hair into sharp relief. She looks upwards, softly back lit.

Mrs Vernon Tate and daughters, Tatler magazine, 1932. (Diana, Cynthia, Pamela and Virginia feature). In its framing it makes me think of the 7 ages of man, though this focuses very much on the youth contingent! The older girls encircle their mother reading and busy, growing and learning. The youngest sits on her mother’s lap, facing forward, contemplating her future. Their mother looks down in a striking black dress with a wide white lapel, influencing her studious daughters and their futures.

Harriet Cohen, 1928, artistically shown playing a flat piano. She wears a Victorian influenced dress, with her hair in a bun at the nape of her neck. Resembles a monochrome David painting.

Harriet Cohen, 1928. The sitter faces us in monochrome from a seat infront of a flat piano. Her white dress is pushed into bright relief contrast against the shadowy background. Above her hangs a white carnival mask. All is elegance.

Laundry (Rosemary Chance (née Gregory-Hood)), 1938. A woman’s work is never done! In a fantasy advertising image in pastel colours, a woman hangs silky delicate lingerie on washing lines to dry, whilst wearing an old fashioned laundress’s bonnet. She clings to the washing line infront of her yearning for…what? At the same time her popping red neatly manicured nails have never really seen a mangle or a bar of laundry soap.

Queen Mary Funnel, 1938. Unexpectedly in an exhibition celebrating society portraits, models and high society, were work men on the RMS Queen Mary, and still lives — including the ship’s funnel. Again it’s all about the colour and composition here. Amongst the browns and reds, a bright orange-red funnel shoots into the sky.

Still life with bust of Nefertiti, 1938. Irony is used here as the celebrated Queen juggles the conflicting demands of the modern woman. Elegantly made-up, Nefertiti is decorated with jewellery, hair ornaments and weilds an iron rather than the sceptre.

Crisis, 1939. Even in war time there is beauty. A classical bust wears a 1939 issue gas mask against some fragile red flowers. Red petals from the ball like flowers are scattered infront of the mask. It’s also a very sad image as war looms, the unknown and fallen petals resemble blood.

Though married to playwright Edgar Middleton, they never had children (shown as Edgar’s choice), I wonder how Yevonde felt about this. Like the romantic names, we don’t know. A wonderful exhibition, though I would have liked more about her technique — she was utilising art of the day up until the end in 1975, copying Man Ray’s tears (beware of photographers manufacturing glycerin tears!) Dali’s lobster, surrealism and modernism.

Dorothy Emily Evelyn (née Whittall), Lady Campbell as Niobe, 1935. The Man Ray like tears were achieved with a glycerin like mixture which did get into the sitter’s eyes. The tears and blood-shot look were real. A tight close up of a made up woman weeping, looking upwards. Stylised tear drops are frozen on her cheeks.

Florence Lambert, 1933. Beautiful and powerful, the sitter looks down into the camera, in a tight close up of her face. The focus on the geometric jewellery she wears — a necklace and long sparkling ear ring, as well as fantastically smart jauntily angled hat. The sitter intelligently quizzes us with a look.

July (Butterflies and a Bust), 1934. Lots of fun here — the bust from Crisis is this time in holiday mode. Wearing a faintly ridiculous straw hat with a large chain strap and sunglasses as well as a floral necklet, the bust surveys the scene and enjoys the summer. The tour de force butterflies were achieved by being mounted onto a pane of glass, thus appearing to flutter across the scene. A white lion eyeballs the bust. Neither of them can believe their eyes!

Yvette (Yvonne) Labrousse, later Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III, renowned for her charitable work on behalf of women and elders. The joie de vivre! In a head scarf, Yvette or ‘the Begum’ flourishes a long bright floral garden as though caught in dance. She looks directly and joyfully at the camera, her head tilted into one shoulder.

Elizabeth Mary (née Maugham), Lady Glendevon, 1936. A romantic image, dominated by a sky full of silver stars. Long before Coldplay imagined such a scene, Yevonde got there first. With a globe slightly out of view, Lady Glendevon sits in an evening gown, lost in thought, hair tightly waved and resting her hand on her cheek, lost in thoughts and dreams. Soft blue light suffuses the scene.

Cecilia Colledge, Olympian figure skater. A head and shoulders monochrome shot. The British figure skater and the first woman skater to perform a double jump beams with happiness, health and life. She won a silver medal at the Olympics in 1936. The shot from the late 1930s celebrates all her achievements. Rather than being known as someone’s wife, daughter or niece, women are doing things for themselves!

Not the usual dull debutante photo (debutantes were notoriously difficult to get a good photo out of due to being too self-conscious or too serious when posing, Yevonde felt). But hidden chocolates had just tumbled out of Jessica Mitford’s ‘Victorian’ bouquet! c.1938. In a v-necked satin 1930s gown, Jessica Mitford looks to the side, clasping a tony flowered bouquet in resting hands to the opposite side of her body. She sits in an ornate padded chair, wearing a white Prince of Wales feather.

Bicycle, 1938. The model appears active and on the move. In reality her scarf is pinned up to suggest movement. She leans forward over the hand bars of a bike, scarf flying out and up behind her, looking intently ahead. She wears a white short sleeved top, red gloves which pop in the image. Her softly waved blonde hair curls up on her shoulders and is clipped out of the way at the side, giving her a clear view.

Louise Brown, 1938. The actress, dancer and singer is ready to fourth wall and leap from the frame. In a white dress with rouched puffed sleeves and a rouched v-necked draped front, the sitter has a beautiful white rose in her piled up blonde hair. She leans forward, almost out of the wooden frame and seems about to speak or move. She’s very poised. The wooden framed is draped with blue gauzy material in swathes, decorated with silver stars.

Margaret Morris, 1939. Making like Margot Fonteyn, the model and dancer has an elegant strapless gown and a large floral crown of roses which she’s fixing in her hair. The sitter is definitely admiring her look and pleased with what she sees.

Not in the exhibition, but absolutely charming —

Joseph Montague Kenworthy, 10th Baron Strabolgi with his granddaughter, 1937. Coronation ready peer! A jolly photo — in full red robes with thick gold braid and black ribbons, the Baron smiles as his grand daughter (not in coronation get up, but a simple blue spotted dress with a white pointed collar) holds his hand and enjoys their photographic moment together. Not quite Dennis Healey eyebrows!

@ Images are not the author’s property, but the intellectual property of Madame Yevonde, curated by the National Portrait Gallery and in one case (watermarked) the Royal Photographic Society. Images are used purely to illustrate the author’s enjoyment of the works displayed in the exhibition: Yevonde: Life in Colour at the National Portrait Gallery, London. October 2023.

Enjoyed reading this article?! Support my writing at: https://ko-fi.com/susanadventuresinculture

Yevonde: Life in Colour, National Portrait Gallery, London

Written by Cultures: Arts Reviews and Views by Susan Tailby

No responses yet