Ethel Léontine Gabain (1883-1950)
Ethel Léontine Gabain 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.
Gabain was born in France and lived there for over twenty years. She then moved to England anfd in 1902, Gabain studied at the Slade School of Fine Art before returning to France in 1903, to study at The Raphael Collin’s Studio in Paris.
From 1904 to 1906, she studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. There, the artist, F. E. Jackson, taught Gabain the art of lithography. The Central, which was established in 1896 by the London County Council, offered instruction in the trades which were thought to be more artistic – lithography being one of them. Gabain was determined to produce her own lithographic prints and also enrolled at the Chelsea Polytechnic for a time. Here she learnt how to use a printing press.
Gabain experimented with colour lithography and decided it was not how she wanted to work so she sought to produce brilliant rich black and white lithographs.
n 1910, Gabain and her future husband John Copley, along with A.S Hartrick and Joseph Pennell, were among the founding members of the Senefelder Club. When the Club held its first exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in January that year, six lithographs by Gabain were included.
In 1927, the club’s members exhibited at the Modern British Engravings Exhibition – held in the Pavilion de Marsan, a wing of the Louvre. In 1929, she featured in the British Art exhibition in Sweden.
Gabain and Copley married in 1913, and they lived in Kent for a time at The Yews in Longfield. Whilst here she adopted a small remarque in the shape of a yew tree in the lower margin of her prints. She also used images of the pergolas and the sundial at their home. The couple and their two sons, Peter and Christopher, moved to 10 Hampstead Square, NW3, where Gabain had her studio on the top floor, and Copley had a press which they used to work together.
In 1925, Copley was so ill it was decided that the family should leave England and live in Alassio, Italy. During the two and a half years they were there, Gabain painted the landscape and gave art classes and public lectures at the Alassio English School.
For financial reasons and due to a fall in the print market, Gabain moved to painting with oils. She sent her first oil painting, Zinnias, to the Royal Academy in 1927, where it was well received. She also painted a number of landscapes in oils and theatrical portraits of well known actresses in character. These included Peggy Ashcroft, Edith Evans, Adelaide Stanley, Flora Robson, and Lilian Baylis. In 1932 she was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists and to the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the following year. Also in 1933, her portrait of Robson, Flora Robson as Lady Audley, was awarded the De Laszlo Silver medal by the Royal Society of British Artists.
Gabain exhibited with both the Artists’ International Association and the New English Art Club.
In 1940, she was elected President of the Society of Women Artists.
