By descent to the artist’s niece, from whom acquired by the current owner
Eileen Mayo studied at the Slade and Central School of Arts & Crafts, electing to remain in London to pursue her artistic ambitions when her father died and her mother emigrated to New Zealand in 1926. In the same year she was introduced to Laura Knight and began a long association with her as her model and protégé. Each summer from 1926 to 1930 she accompanied Laura and Harold Knight to Newlyn, Cornwall.
A very striking woman with a beautiful figure and golden hair (a lock of which is held in the Tate Archive), Mayo is shown in the present picture with her head turned away and tilted slightly upwards - a pose denoting inspiration. Harold Knight painted her on more than one occasion and she is also the sitter in Laura Knight's 'Blue and Gold' and Dod Procter's sensual nude 'The Mirror' amongst other celebrated paintings from this period of British art. She later modelled for Mark Gertler, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Bernard Meninsky.
Mayo's own break came in 1928 when her linocut 'Turkish Bath', exhibited at the Redfern Gallery, was bought by the Victoria & Albert Museum. She was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1994, a week before her death in New Zealand.