:Hazel Lavery

Born in Chicago on 14 March 1880,{{cite web |last1=McCoole |first1=Sinéad |title=Lavery, Lady Hazel |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/lavery-hazel-a4700 |accessdate=5 March 2015 |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography |publisher=Cambridge University Press}} Hazel Martyn was the daughter of Edward Jenner Martyn, a wealthy industrialist of Irish descent. A contemporary account refers to young Hazel Martyn as "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Midwest".{{cite web |url=http://www.saintc.org/history/Chapter%201/Chapter_1.asp |title=Saint Chrysostom's Episcopal Church |accessdate=2007-01-06 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070103052636/http://www.saintc.org/history/Chapter%201/Chapter_1.asp |archivedate=2007-01-03 }} Edward Jenner Martyn was a one-time vice-president of Philip Armour's Union Stock Yards & Transit Company. The Martyns were important donors at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. Hazel had one sister, Dorothea Hope "Dorothy" Martyn (1887–1911), who was an aspiring playwright. Suffering from anorexia nervosa, Dorothy died in 1911 aged 23, and it was her death that spurred Hazel to leave America.

File:Lady Lavery.jpg, 1922|left]]

In 1903, Hazel Martyn married Edward Livingston Trudeau Jr, son of Edward Livingston Trudeau, a physician who advanced the treatment of tuberculosis. Trudeau died five months later from an embolism brought on by pneumonia."Hazel Martyn Trudeau Weds", The New York Times, 22 July 1909 They had one daughter, Alice, born 10 October 1904 (Alice later spent much of her life in Ireland, marrying first John A. McEnery of Co. Kilkenny, then after being widowed, in 1963 she married historian Denis Rolleston Gywnn).{{Cite web |last=Murphy, John A. |title=Gywnn, Denis Rolleston |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/lavery-hazel-a4700 |access-date=2024-06-22 |website=Irish Dictionary of Biography}}

Hazel Martyn first met John Lavery, a Catholic-born painter, originally from Belfast whilst engaged to Trudeau. In 1909 she and Lavery married after the death of her mother who was opposed to the match.{{Cite web |title=INSIDER 29 {{!}} SPECIAL FEATURES {{!}} The Story of Hazel, Lady Lavery: The woman behind the banknote classic |url=https://www.spink.com/media/view?id=431 |access-date=2024-06-22 |website=www.spink.com}} Subsequently, she became Lavery's most frequent sitter.[http://www.crawfordartgallery.com/Paintings/JLavery.html Crawford Art Gallery, London] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070314030903/http://www.crawfordartgallery.com/Paintings/JLavery.html |date=2007-03-14 }}

File:John_Lavery_-_The_Artist's_Studio,_Lady_Hazel_Lavery_with_her_Daughter_Alice_and_Stepdaughter_Eileen.jpg

During World War I, John Lavery became an official artist for the British government. In 1918, he received a knighthood, and Hazel Lavery became Lady Lavery.Sir John Lavery by Kenneth McConkey (Canongate Press, 1993)

The Laverys lent their palatial house at 5 Cromwell Place in South Kensington to the Irish delegation led by Michael Collins during negotiations for the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921.

Hazel Lavery died of a heart attack on 1 January 1935 at her home in London, having been suffering ill health for over a year after an operation to remove a wisdom tooth, with her husband and daughter at her side.{{Cite news |date=1935-01-05 |title=Obituary for Lady Hazel Lavery (Aged 47) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-obituary-for-lady-hazel/51577354/ |access-date=2024-06-22 |work=Chicago Tribune |pages=24}}

Her funeral mass took place at the Brompton Oratory in Knightsbridge. She was buried in Putney Vale Cemetery. In Ireland, a memorial service for her took place at the request of the government.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Sir John Lavery moved to live with his stepdaughter Alice McEnery, at Rosenarra, Kilmoganny, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland and died there in January 1941. He was initially buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin but was reinterred next to Hazel Lavery in Putney Vale Cemetery in 1947.{{Cite web |last=Snoddy, Theo |title=Sir John Lavery |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/lavery-sir-john-a4701 |access-date=2024-06-22 |website=Irish Dictionary of Biography}}

File:Portrait of Lady Lavery as Kathleen Ni Houlihan .PNG

After the Anglo-Irish treaty, the Irish Free State government invited John Lavery to create an image of a female personification of Ireland for the new Irish banknotes. Such a personification harks back to figures in ancient Irish mythology and has been exemplified in recent centuries by women such as James Clarence Mangan's Dark Rosaleen and W. B. Yeats' Cathleen Ní Houlihan.

This personification of Ireland, modelled on Lady Lavery and painted by her husband, was reproduced on the Series_A_banknotes of Ireland from 1928 until the 1970s. It then appeared as a watermark on Series B and Series C notes until the latter were replaced by the euro in 2002.[http://www.irlgov.ie/ecbi-euro/legi5.htm Euro Changeover Board of Ireland] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927181403/http://www.irlgov.ie/ecbi-euro/legi5.htm |date=2006-09-27 }}: Economic and Monetary Union Act, 1998

File:TheRedRose.jpg]]

Lady Lavery sat for more than 400 portraits by Sir John. Many were similarly named, leading an expert to remark that "Hazel in ..." is virtually a Lavery trademark.

Lavery's biographer described "Hazel in rose and grey" as "One of the nicest of Lavery's "Hazel in" pictures. For once he abandons the full-length format and the composition gains a more curvy, dynamic appearance. Hazel, profiled by what photographers call a hair light, wears a wispy dress the colour of faded hydrangeas".

Another well-known portrait of Hazel Lavery painted by her husband is known as "The Red Rose" (1923). As one expert describes, this painting has a complicated history:

Her well-known face and the characteristic red, purple and gold colour harmonies make The Red Rose immediately recognizable as a portrait of her. However, the canvas was begun in 1892 as a portrait of Mrs William Burrell. In 1912 it was transformed into a portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, and in the early twenties it was, for a brief period, a portrait of Viscountess Curzon.

File:Mrs Lavery sketching.jpg|362x362px]]

Lady Lavery knew many famous figures of her era and corresponded with such notable figures as Maurice Baring, Hilaire Belloc, Owen Buckmaster, Tim Healy, Shane Leslie, Reginald McKenna, Jessie Louisa Rickard, George Bernard Shaw, Lytton Strachey, Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson and W. B. Yeats.

This correspondence became public long after her death and reveals much about her personality and how she was regarded by her contemporaries. Amongst the events that are recounted are a visit to Ireland by the British Royal family,[http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/fl/f163}10.htm#id49629] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205120830/http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/fl/f163%7D10.htm#id49629|date=5 February 2012}} Georgetown University, Sir Shane Leslie collection, undated letter and her letters from Winston Churchill in which he confided in her his reservations about the creation of Northern Ireland.[http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/fl/f163}10.htm#id49629] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205120830/http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/fl/f163%7D10.htm#id49629|date=5 February 2012}} Georgetown University, Sir Shane Leslie collection, from one of the four following Churchill letters:11/8/1924, 11/12/1924, 2/27/1929, undated

Other correspondents speculated about Lady Lavery's relationship with Michael Collins and Kevin O'Higgins.[http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/fl/f163}10.htm#id49629] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205120830/http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/fl/f163%7D10.htm#id49629|date=5 February 2012}} Georgetown University, Sir Shane Leslie collection, 1950 letter to Audrey Morris. According to the memoirs of Derek Patmore, a writer, artist, and interior designer who was a close friend of Lady Lavery's, Collins was "the great love in her life" and that Sir Shane "told me that when Michael Collins was killed in an ambush they found a miniature of Hazel hanging around his neck with a poem Shane Leslie had written to her on the back of it".Patmore, Derek, "Private History," London: Jonathan Cape, 1960, p. 164

Speculation about the relationship between Collins and Lady Lavery led a newspaper of the day to refer to her as his "sweetheart", an issue Collins wrote to his fiancé Kitty Kiernan about.Michael Collins and the Women Who Spied for Ireland by Meda Ryan, Mercier Publication (2006)

Historian Meda Ryan has cast doubts on these rumours. Ryan states that "in all the research I have done, I have found no evidence whatsoever that he had an affair with Lady Lavery". Emmet Dalton, a close associate of Collins who was with him during the period when the supposed affair happened, says he saw no evidence of an affair. Todd Andrews states that such an affair would have been against the code of conduct of the IRA and that it would not have been tolerated. Ryan also states that correspondence between Collins and Kitty Kiernan in this period shows that their relationship was solid.{{Cite web|url=http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/collins-didnt-have-affair-with-lady-lavery-claim-26414347.html|title = Collins didn't have affair with Lady Lavery: Claim}}

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• [http://www.hughlane.ie/past/160-sir-john-lavery-passion-and-politics Sir John Lavery: Passion and Politics Exhibition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402090937/http://www.hughlane.ie/past/160-sir-john-lavery-passion-and-politics |date=2 April 2015 }}, Hugh Lane Gallery

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Category:1880 births

Category:1935 deaths

Category:American people of Irish descent

Category:Painters from Chicago

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Category:Burials at Putney Vale Cemetery

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Category:American expatriates in England

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Category:The Masters School alumni