By: GABAIN, Ethel Lontine (1883-1950)

Acq. Number: 15

Dimensions: 30.5 x 22.9 cm

Artwork_Medium: lithograph

Purchased: 1941

Buyer: BARBER, L H – gift

Location: Newport Museum and Art Gallery

Town: Newport

Notes: French born painter, portraitist and lithographer Gabain was a founder member of the Senefelder Club, a group of artists who came together in 1909 to promote lithography as an artform. Her future husband, printmaker John Copley was also a member. She became a renowned war artist - having been commissioned in 1940 by the War Artists Advisory Committee - documenting the contribution of women to the war effort, and also child evacuees. Gabain travelled around wartime Britain painting and recording women working in factories, as land girls and as lumberjacks. In 1944, she painted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, in his laboratory; she also painted a child receiving the drug.