Hilda Fearon

Hilda Fearon was born in 1878 in Banstead, Surrey,{{cite web |title=Hilda FEARON {{!}} Cornwall Artists Index |url=https://cornwallartists.org/cornwall-artists/hilda-fearon |website=cornwallartists.org |language=en}} the third daughter of Paul Bradshaw Fearon, a wine and spirits merchant, and his wife Edith Jane Duffield, of Court House.UK Births, Marriages and Deaths She was baptised, aged 9, together with her four siblings in Swanage, Dorset, in 1888.Swanage Baptismal Register, 1888

She left Banstead to study art in Dresden (1897–99) with Robert Sterl, then at Slade (1899-1904) and with Algernon Talmage in St Ives, Cornwall;{{sfn|Petteys|1985|p=242}} Talmage (then living apart from his wife) and she had neighbouring apartments at Cathcart Studios, Chelsea, at the turn of the century UK 1901 Census and they later lived together although did not marry.

Fearon began to make a name for herself as a member of the St Ives School, being one of the plein air artists whose work was exhibited at St Ives and Cheltenham in 1906 (The End of the Evening and Moonlit Harbour),{{cite news |title=The Cornish Telegraph |date=29 Mar 1906}}{{cite news |title=Gloucestershire Echo |date=22 Oct 1906}} and exhibited regularly from the mid-1900s onwards. Although she continued to paint land and beach/seascapes, her work diversified from the that associated with the St Ives School to cover a variety of subjects; she frequently depicted figures of women and children set in interiors. Her work The Song, was described as a "small but very admirable"{{cite news |title=Civil & Military Gazette |issue=30 May 1909}} portrait group, at the Royal Academy in 1909, which the critic at the Daily News described as "admirable in tone, good as pattern, interesting in temper" and remarked that Fearon "appears... to have something to say."{{cite news |title=Daily News |date=1 May 1909}}

Her paintings were exhibited regularly in the years leading up to her death and were reviewed by the critic. Venues at which she exhibited included the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours, London,{{cite news |title=Illustrated London News |work=27 Mar 1909}} the Goupil Gallery,{{cite news |title=London Evening Standard |date=28 Oct 1912}} the New English Art Club,{{cite news |title=The Queen |date=2 Dec 1911}} White City Stadium{{cite news |title=The Queen |date=10 Aug 1912}} and at provincial shows. She was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy of Arts each year (Willows, 1908;{{cite news |title=The Queen |issue=23 May 1908}} The Song, 1909;{{cite news |title=Daily News |issue=1 May 1909}} The White Room and The Sandpit, 1910;{{cite news |title=The Bystander |date=4 May 1910}}{{cite news |title=Gentlewoman |date=11 Jun 1910}} The Window and The Morning Drive, 1911;{{cite news |title=The Queen |date=20 May 1911}} The Ballet Master, 1912;{{cite news |title=Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News |date=11 May 1912}} Midsummer, Under the Cliffs and Silver and Green, 1913;{{cite news |title=Western Daily Press |date=4 Apr 1913}}{{cite news |title=Votes for Women |date=9 May 1913}} Enchantment, 1914;{{cite news |title=London Evening Standard |issue=4 May 1914}} The Breakfast Table and Nannie, Bessie and John, 1916;{{cite news |title=Gentlewoman |date=17 Jun 1916}} The Road Across the Downs and Afternoon Sunshine, 1917).

Fearon's paintings at the 1917 RA exhibition, both figures-in-landscape paintings described by one critic as "things seen and felt"{{cite news |title=The Sketch |issue=16 May 1917}} (Afternoon Sunshine depicted two children playing with a goat in the sunshine against a background of rocks; The Road Across the Downs showed a lady in a cart, on a white road over the downs) were said by The Gentlewoman's art correspondent to be "very delightful" and to sustain the artist's growing reputation.{{cite news |title=The Gentlewoman |date=16 Jun 1917}} By the time the article in The Gentlewoman was published, Fearon was dead: she died on 2 June 1917,UK Probate Records, 1917 aged 38.

At the time of her death, Fearon was living with Talmage at 22 Jouberts Mansions, Jubilee Place, off the Kings Road in Chelsea.{{cite book |last=Petteys |first=Chris |title=Dictionary of Women Artists: An international dictionary of women artists born before 1900 |publisher=G.K. Hall & Co. |location=Boston |year=1985 |page=242}}

Her work is included in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London,{{cite web |title=Hilda Fearon 1878–1917 |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/hilda-fearon-1083 |website=Tate}} and the Art Gallery of South Australia.{{cite web |title=Studio interior |url=https://www.agsa.sa.gov.au/collection-publications/collection/works/studio-interior/25030/ |website=AGSA - Online Collection |language=en}}

File:Hilda Fearon (1878-1917) - The Tea Party - N04832 - National Gallery.jpg|The Tea Party (1916)

File:Hilda Fearon - Studio interior - Google Art Project.jpg|Studio interior (1914)

File:Hilda Fearon A portrait of a mother and her two sons 1911.jpg|A portrait of a mother and her two sons (1911)

File:Hilda Fearon Afternoon tea.jpg|Afternoon tea (undated)

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Category:1878 births

Category:1917 deaths

Category:20th-century English painters

Category:20th-century English women artists

Category:Artists from Cornwall