Artist Ethel Leontine Gabain (British artsit)

Artist Ethel Leontine Gabain

Ethel Léontine Gabain (26 March 1883 – 30 January 1950) was a French-English artist. Gabain was a renowned painter and lithographer and among the founding members of the Senefelder Club. She was the wife of the print maker John Copley and the mother of actor Peter Copley, and was also known by her married name of Ethel Copley. While she was known for her oil portraits of actresses,Gabain was one of the few artists of her time able to live on the sale of her lithographs. She also did etchings, dry-points, as well as some posters. Whilst living and working in Paris Gabain began to work on a theme centred on ‘melancholic young females.’ She produced numerous lithographic images of a lonely young female. Gabain revisited this theme later on in her career and produced several different images of a sad young bride. She always used her favourite model, Carmen Watson, in these depictions. Gabain exhibited with both the Artists' International Association and the New English Art Club and, for extra income, would sometimes lecture on art history. In 1940, she was elected President of the Society of Women Artists.