SUSAN ISABEL DACRE (1844-1933).

SID
Portrait of Susan Isabel Dacre by Annie Louisa Swynnerton (Manchester Art Gallery)

From the time they met at art school, Isabel (she was generally known by her middle name) and Annie were close friends, travelling, studying and creating art works together in Britain and on the continent.

There is a detailed biography HERE.

Earlier in their careers, it was Isabel’s work that drew the most praise and attention, such as in The Englishwoman’s Review, 1882, where several of her paintings are mentioned by name while Annie has only a passing reference. Isabel was a gifted landscape and portrait artist, but never (as far as is known) became a ‘symbolist’ like Annie.

Like Annie, Isabel’s works were not collected by major galleries and only forty-one are known today by image, twenty-two in public galleries, three works in private collections, and the rest from auction or retailer web sites or images in old publications.

Below is a list of all the works for which images can be found. For listing by date/location, see bottom of page.

FIGURATIVE WORKS

  • A CHILD, SEATED (PORTRAIT OF A CHILD)a-child-seated-T
    • Media: oil on canvas.
    • Dimensions: 700 x 900 mm (0.63 m²).
    • History: “Gift [to Salford Art Gallery] from Mrs Madge Massey Cooper, 1928.”
    • Location: Salford Museum and Art Gallery.
  • A YOUNG VIOLINISTa-young-violinist-T
    • Media: oil on canvas.
    • Dimensions: 660 x 813 mm (0.54 m²).
    • History: “signed and dated 1904“; auctioned 18 June 1985, auctioned Phillip’s, London, “The Young Violinist“; auctioned 1 Oct 2019, Gorringe’s, Lewes, “Oil on canvas with a rather shiny varnish, paint showing a pronounced craquelure which is starting to lift throughout to the point where it is getting close to flaking particularly through the skirt, but also in the flesh tones otherwise small fibres or hairs are stuck in the varnish most notably the brown area in front of her face, signed lower right, housed in an old an probably original ebonised frame which has a few small dents and losses, a paper label attached giving further details of the work such as title, date etc.,” provenance “A private collection in Sussex,” sold; for sale at John Robertson, Surrey, “conserved and relined” from ?Feb 2020.
    • Location: with vendor.
  • FOREST NYMPHDacre-forest-nymph-T
    • Media: pastel on paper.
    • Dimensions: 660 x 813 mm (0.54 m²).
    • History: auctioned Isbilya Subastas, Seville, Spain, 21 Jan 2015, sold.
    • Location: unknown.
  • GIRL IN A WHITE DRwhite-dress-TESS
  • HELEN
    • Media: oil on canvas.
    • Dimensions: 700 x 900 mm (0.63 m²).
    • History: signed and dated 1882; auctioned Nesbits Auctions Ltd., Southsea, 4 Jun 2014.
    • Location: unknown.

NON-FIGURATIVE WORKS

image-7

    • Media: oil on canvas (assumed).
    • Dimensions: ?
    • History: illustrated in The Guardian, 21 Mar 1925, “… by Miss S. Isabel Dacre, the president of the Attic Club, which it holds its annual exhibition in Manchester next week.”
    • Location: unknown.

Sizes given are the horizontal and vertical dimensions in that order, unframed. Note that sizes given in auction catalogues or on retailer web sites are often imprecise.

Locations: ‘private collection’ = in the possession of a private individual, institution or vendor; ‘unknown’ = in a private, institutional or vendor collection, irretrievably lost or destroyed by neglect or deliberate destruction.

LISTED BY LOCATION

LISTED BY DATE

WORKS IN EXHIBITIONS, 1975 to 1929.

Full details are in the exhibitions database page.

  • 1875.
    • Yorkshire Exhibition of Arts and Manufactures.
      • AN ITALIAN GIRL.
    • The Liverpool Autumn Exhibition of Pictures.
      • A GOOD SUBJECT FOR THE SCHOOL BOARD.
  • 1876.
    • Royal Academy, 108th exhibition.
      • LA BALLERINA.
  • 1877.
    • Royal Academy, 109th exhibition.
      • GIOVANNINA.
  • 1878.
    • Royal Manchester Institution.
      • ‘A portrait.’
  • 1880.
    • Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
      • MARIETTA.
    • Royal Manchester Institution.
      • PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY. 
  • 1882.
    • Manchester Society of Women Painters – Second Exhibition.
      • THE BORGHESE GARDENS.
      • COURTYARD, ROME.
      • THE FOUNTAIN.
      • IL FRATRE.
      • FLORENTINE MOTHER AND CHILD.
      • ‘some excellent portraits.’
  • 1883.
    • Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
      • SUSAN.
  • 1884.
    • Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
  • 1885.
    • Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
      • PASSION FLOWER.
  • 1888.
    • Manchester Society of Women Painters – Fifth Exhibition.
  • 1889.
    • New Gallery.
    • Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
      • “A MAIDEN NEVER BOLD OF SPIRIT, SO STILL AN QUIET.”
  • 1893.
    • Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
      • THE MOTHER.
  • 1894.
    • Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
      • SCHOOL-TIME.
  • 1906.
    • New English Art Club – Thirty-Seventh Exhibition of Modern Pictures.
      • IN THE HEART OF THE APPENINES.
      • THE QUIET HOUR.
  • 1907.
    • New English Art Club – Thirty-eighth Exhibition of Modern Pictures.
      • SPANISH MOUNTAINS.
      • PORTRAIT.
    • New English Art Club – Thirty-ninth Exhibition of Modern Pictures.
      • IN THE HERCINAN MOUNTAINS.
  • 1908.
    • New English Art Club – Fortieth Exhibition of Modern Pictures.
      • IN A GARDEN.
  • 1909.
    • Manchester Academy of Fine Arts – Jubilee Exhibition (June 1909).
      • PORTRAIT OF A GIRL WEARING A BONNET.
  • 1910.
    • New English Art Club – Forty-fourth Exhibition of Modern Pictures.
      • ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.
      • THE MISTY OCHILLS.
  • 1911.
    • New English Art Club – Forty-sixth Exhibition of Modern Pictures.
      • PIAZZA VITTORIO EMANUELE, PERUGIA.
      • ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.
  • 1912.
    • Walker’s Gallery – Little Pictures of Italy.
      • ‘City scenes and hill-landscapes.’
    • New English Art Club – Forth-seventh Exhibition of Modern Pictures.
    • New English Art Club – Forty-eighth Exhibition of Modern Pictures.
      • FROM A BALCONY AT PERUGIA.
  • 1914.
    •  
    • New English Art Club – Fifty-second Exhibition of Modern Paintings.
      • SPOLETO FROM THE CAPPUCINI.
      • SUNSET AT SPOLETO.
  • 1927.
  • 1929.
    • Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
      • SUNSET AT RONDA.
    •  

Isabel had a solo exhibition at Walker’s Gallary, Bond Street, London, in 1912:

… at Walker’s Gallery the charming works of an artist less well known in London, the “Little Pictures of Italy” of Miss Isabel Dacre. We can call to mind few modern painters who can render the different phases of Italian colour with greater accuracy than this lady, who evidently lived in the country and learned to love it in all its moods and tenses. Perugia, Assisi, and Siena seem to be her favourite places, and her pictures of the hill-landscapes around those cities are singularly faithful.

The Times, 12 March 1912, p11.