Sylvia Gosse

Afternoon Tea. 20th Century Graphite Drawing

Sylvia Gosse was the daughter of Sir Edmund Gosse, an eminent man of letters. She trained at the St John's Wood School of Art, the Royal Academy Schools and under Sickert, at the Westminster School of Art. From 1909, she exhibited at Frank Rutter's Allied Artists's Association and began showing with the New English Art Club, from 1911. In 1913, she exhibited with the Camden Town Group, in their exhibition in Brighton. Her first solo exhibition, at the Carfax Gallery, in 1916, revealed the influences of both Sickert and Gilman. She was a founder member of the London Group and exhibited over 50 works with them, throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Remaining very close to Sickert, she taught with him at his Rowlandson House School in London and then followed him to Dieppe, where she nursed him through periods of ill health. She was a loyal disciple of Sickert's methods, in both painting and etching. In 1934, she instigated the Sickert Fund, to support him in his old age. She was also close to Gilman, for a period and modelled for him. Admired by the critic, Frank Rutter, she was included in his 1935 book, Modern Masterpieces, where she was recognized as belonging to the group of English Impressionists. In 1989, a significant exhibition of her work was staged at the Michael Parkin Gallery and she traveled to the University of Hull. Examples of her work are held by the Tate Gallery and Ashmolean Museum. She spent her final years living near Hastings, in Sussex.