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Letters to Gwen John
Letters to Gwen John
Hardcover
Published April 7, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
March 19, 2023
As the name suggests these are Celia Paul's imagined letters to another painter, Gwen John. Imagined, because Gwen John died in 1939, twenty years before the British painter Celia Paul was born. Their lives share similarities, which make Paul infatuated with Gwen John, hence the letters.
It is difficult to describe what made this book, and also Celia Paul's Self-Portrait (that I read shortly before this) work for me. Her thoughts wander sometimes aimlessly, sometimes they are quite grounded in facts of Gwen John's or her own life. Her writing is the rare kind that gives an overall feeling - it does not even matter what is the subject at hand. Reading her work creates a wonderful meditative state. Serene cool waves that wash over you again and again. Writing that is restrained and very frail. Similarly, with Self-Portrait, I felt this book to be of a certain colour. This time very pale pink mixed with faded blue and pale grey.
She writes with such clarity and vulnerability about what it means to be a painter. Painting almost feels l ike a duty to her. Like for many truly creative people, it isn't a choice but an inevitable state, something that is non-negotiable and vital.
A hauntingly beautiful book.
It is difficult to describe what made this book, and also Celia Paul's Self-Portrait (that I read shortly before this) work for me. Her thoughts wander sometimes aimlessly, sometimes they are quite grounded in facts of Gwen John's or her own life. Her writing is the rare kind that gives an overall feeling - it does not even matter what is the subject at hand. Reading her work creates a wonderful meditative state. Serene cool waves that wash over you again and again. Writing that is restrained and very frail. Similarly, with Self-Portrait, I felt this book to be of a certain colour. This time very pale pink mixed with faded blue and pale grey.
She writes with such clarity and vulnerability about what it means to be a painter. Painting almost feels l ike a duty to her. Like for many truly creative people, it isn't a choice but an inevitable state, something that is non-negotiable and vital.
A hauntingly beautiful book.
June 18, 2023
Es una joyita, me deja con ganas de saber más de Gwen John y sobre todo, encontrar los cuadros a color que trae esta edición de Chai 🤍
July 5, 2024
Tender, sensitive, subtle shifts in an expression, brush, or beam of light indicate sea changes. The magic of love, friendship, and solitude. <3 very special!
November 23, 2024
Pasé un mes acurrucada en esta soledad compartida entre Celia y Gwen.
"Pienso en cómo hacer para vivir y valorar la vida y al mismo tiempo renunciar a ella, y en si yo podría llegar a domar y atemperar mi anhelo, la ansiedad y la soledad que siento cada vez que termino un cuadro o que una persona se va, aprendiendo a seguir adelante, sin resignación pero tranquila".
"Pienso en cómo hacer para vivir y valorar la vida y al mismo tiempo renunciar a ella, y en si yo podría llegar a domar y atemperar mi anhelo, la ansiedad y la soledad que siento cada vez que termino un cuadro o que una persona se va, aprendiendo a seguir adelante, sin resignación pero tranquila".
May 31, 2025
Every page felt like a gift.
January 29, 2025
I read the Paul’s first book self portrait and loved it. This book is a match and I loved it too. Any book that makes one go and find out about other things and creates interest you didn’t know you had is a wonderful outcome.
June 17, 2025
"If you came it would not be the same, as we come into each other's solitude or harmony, don't we? We are a part of each other's 'atmosphere'" (Gwen John to Ursula Tyrwhitt, 1927).
This is a difficult project to rate. At times, it feels as if this text never should have been shared for public consumption. These are letters to Gwen John, of course, not to us, sharing some of British painter Celia Paul's most intimate and painful moments. As with Gwen's artistic oeuvre, there is an aura of privacy, of aloneness, implied.
I have not been particularly moved by Celia Paul's art in the past (gashes of thick paint, the mood of a wall crumbling into ivy), but Gwen John ranks among my top ten artists of all time. It was interesting to make sense of Gwen's writing and paintings through the lens of Celia's interpretation and her own life narrative. They shared many parallels, from a troubling relationship with an older male artist (for Celia, Lucian Freud; for Gwen, Rodin) to an innate dire need for solitude and a fixation on the sea.
Celia calls upon Gwen as if on a saint or a lost relative, to hear her and guide her in her art. I found these meditations on the life of the artist and the undercurrent of faith and belief to be the most engrossing elements. In 1990, Celia Paul painted her aging mother, who was a Christian, in My Mother and God, where her mother's frail form is overshadowed by layered darkness in the background, only alleviated by a narrow strip of pale golden light at the top of the painting. When her mother saw the finished piece, she exclaimed that "no, this was not it at all." That was not how she viewed God, and I feel inclined to agree, though the painting does evoke a kind of holy waiting, like a night in the lion's den. Years later, Celia awoke early to "think about God" and ask for the stillness to complete the mountain background for My Mother and the Mountain (1994-2020). When she showed her partner the final result, he wept. To me, this is her masterpiece, capturing the sleepy tenderness of Creation. Her mother rests as if in the womb of the world. It presents an unfolding mystery one can trust.
Rodin briefly joined a religious order after the death of his sister in 1862. Gwen converted to Catholicism and became increasingly devout in her later years and painted luminous pictures of nuns at the convent in Meudon. She called herself “God’s little artist: a seer of strange beauties, a teller of harmonies. A diligent worker.” In 1912, she wrote, instructing herself with her classic brevity and firmness, "Ask God to strengthen your will to be a great Saint.” I suppose she succeeded.
£5 discovery at an Edinburgh charity shop, preparing me for summer research on Gwen John at the Musée Rodin. <3
This is a difficult project to rate. At times, it feels as if this text never should have been shared for public consumption. These are letters to Gwen John, of course, not to us, sharing some of British painter Celia Paul's most intimate and painful moments. As with Gwen's artistic oeuvre, there is an aura of privacy, of aloneness, implied.
I have not been particularly moved by Celia Paul's art in the past (gashes of thick paint, the mood of a wall crumbling into ivy), but Gwen John ranks among my top ten artists of all time. It was interesting to make sense of Gwen's writing and paintings through the lens of Celia's interpretation and her own life narrative. They shared many parallels, from a troubling relationship with an older male artist (for Celia, Lucian Freud; for Gwen, Rodin) to an innate dire need for solitude and a fixation on the sea.
Celia calls upon Gwen as if on a saint or a lost relative, to hear her and guide her in her art. I found these meditations on the life of the artist and the undercurrent of faith and belief to be the most engrossing elements. In 1990, Celia Paul painted her aging mother, who was a Christian, in My Mother and God, where her mother's frail form is overshadowed by layered darkness in the background, only alleviated by a narrow strip of pale golden light at the top of the painting. When her mother saw the finished piece, she exclaimed that "no, this was not it at all." That was not how she viewed God, and I feel inclined to agree, though the painting does evoke a kind of holy waiting, like a night in the lion's den. Years later, Celia awoke early to "think about God" and ask for the stillness to complete the mountain background for My Mother and the Mountain (1994-2020). When she showed her partner the final result, he wept. To me, this is her masterpiece, capturing the sleepy tenderness of Creation. Her mother rests as if in the womb of the world. It presents an unfolding mystery one can trust.
Rodin briefly joined a religious order after the death of his sister in 1862. Gwen converted to Catholicism and became increasingly devout in her later years and painted luminous pictures of nuns at the convent in Meudon. She called herself “God’s little artist: a seer of strange beauties, a teller of harmonies. A diligent worker.” In 1912, she wrote, instructing herself with her classic brevity and firmness, "Ask God to strengthen your will to be a great Saint.” I suppose she succeeded.
£5 discovery at an Edinburgh charity shop, preparing me for summer research on Gwen John at the Musée Rodin. <3
February 13, 2025
El año pasado leí Autorretrato. Apenas vi este otro título escrito por Celia Paul (1959), no dudé en adquirirlo.
Cartas a Gwen John, aclara su autora, no es una biografía, se trata de un "encuentro".
Celia Paul siempre sintió una gran afinidad con la escritora galesa, partiendo por el hecho que ambas sostuvieron relaciones amorosas con pintores más de treinta años mayores.
"La mirada pública te asocia siempre con tu hermano Augustus y tu amante, Auguste Rodin. A mí me ven a la luz de mi relación con Lucien Freud. No nos consideran artistas autónomas."
Celia Paul escribe estas cartas desde comienzos del 2019 hasta fines del 2020. Su propósito es sostener un diálogo entre ambas y para ello se vale de los escritos de Gwen John (1876-1939), además de dos biografías sobre la artista galesa.
Un aspecto que atraviesa la escritura de Celia Paul es el conflicto que la atormenta entre el deseo de estar sola para poder crear su obra y la imperiosa necesidad de personas para amar y ser amada.
En las cartas se plantea generalmente un contrapunto entre ambas creadoras, a partir de determinadas experiencias, reflexiones o emociones, estableciendo semejanzas y diferencias que contribuyen a enriquecer la mirada sobre la vida y la obra de ambas artistas.
Celia Paul escribe cartas y segmentos narrativos y descriptivos. Va entrelazando recuerdos, anécdotas, reflexiones, descripciones con citas de la correspondencia y de los cuadernos escritos por Gwen John.
Creo que esta obra permite, principalmente, adentrarse en el mundo interno, los procesos creativos y en el sentido profundo de la obra pictórica de ambas artistas para valorarlas por su arte finalmente.
El libro incluye fotografías en blanco y negro de varios cuadros de ambas pintoras lo que constituye todo un acierto editorial ya que es un complemento que enriquece la lectura del texto.
Celia Paul y Gwen John son notables personajes del arte moderno y contemporáneo y excelentes escritoras por lo demás.
Un librazo.
Cartas a Gwen John, aclara su autora, no es una biografía, se trata de un "encuentro".
Celia Paul siempre sintió una gran afinidad con la escritora galesa, partiendo por el hecho que ambas sostuvieron relaciones amorosas con pintores más de treinta años mayores.
"La mirada pública te asocia siempre con tu hermano Augustus y tu amante, Auguste Rodin. A mí me ven a la luz de mi relación con Lucien Freud. No nos consideran artistas autónomas."
Celia Paul escribe estas cartas desde comienzos del 2019 hasta fines del 2020. Su propósito es sostener un diálogo entre ambas y para ello se vale de los escritos de Gwen John (1876-1939), además de dos biografías sobre la artista galesa.
Un aspecto que atraviesa la escritura de Celia Paul es el conflicto que la atormenta entre el deseo de estar sola para poder crear su obra y la imperiosa necesidad de personas para amar y ser amada.
En las cartas se plantea generalmente un contrapunto entre ambas creadoras, a partir de determinadas experiencias, reflexiones o emociones, estableciendo semejanzas y diferencias que contribuyen a enriquecer la mirada sobre la vida y la obra de ambas artistas.
Celia Paul escribe cartas y segmentos narrativos y descriptivos. Va entrelazando recuerdos, anécdotas, reflexiones, descripciones con citas de la correspondencia y de los cuadernos escritos por Gwen John.
Creo que esta obra permite, principalmente, adentrarse en el mundo interno, los procesos creativos y en el sentido profundo de la obra pictórica de ambas artistas para valorarlas por su arte finalmente.
El libro incluye fotografías en blanco y negro de varios cuadros de ambas pintoras lo que constituye todo un acierto editorial ya que es un complemento que enriquece la lectura del texto.
Celia Paul y Gwen John son notables personajes del arte moderno y contemporáneo y excelentes escritoras por lo demás.
Un librazo.
August 8, 2025
Además del cine y la literatura, la pintura tb es una de mis obsesiones. No soy ninguna entendida en arte, pero cuando un cuadro me atrapa, me quedo embobada disfrutando de él. Y así ocurrió con este libro. Fue ver la portada y sentirme atraída inmediatamente. Un libro q una pintora, Celia Paul (1959-), dedica a otra pintora, Gwen John (1876-1939).
Confieso q no conocía a ninguna de las dos, pero ha sido fascinante leer las cartas ficticias q Celia escribe a Gwen, contando sus reflexiones sobre su vida como pintora, y como esposa y amante de otro pintor, Lucien Freud.
Dos pintoras cuyas vidas parecen conectadas por las circunstancias q les rodean, pq Gwen John fue amante de Rodin y ambas se sintieron tratadas injustamente por la sombra de la fama de sus parejas famosas.
He disfrutado muchísimo descubriendo datos biográficos de las dos, comprendiendo sus temores y sus obsesiones con la pintura y con ese deseo de ser reconocidas sin la etiqueta de musas de sus parejas. Una lucha por su arte y su independencia, mientras se aferran a un amor q les absorbe. Ha sido maravilloso comprender e imaginar todo el proceso creativo de sus pinturas y descubrir los resultados.
Un libro q además viene con las imágenes de los cuadros mencionados, aunq la pena es q las imágenes vienen en blanco y negro. Aún así, me ha parecido una joya y un libro maravilloso q os recomiendo, pq como bien explica la autora:
"Las dos somos pintoras. Podríamos conectarnos a través de imágenes con nuestro propio lenguaje sin voz. Pero las palabras son un medio de comunicación más directo. Así q voy a intentarlo, me acercaré con palabras."
En el carrusel algunos de los cuadros mencionados y que más me han gustado y los libros q se mencionan. Lo dicho, q lo dusfrutéis❤️
Confieso q no conocía a ninguna de las dos, pero ha sido fascinante leer las cartas ficticias q Celia escribe a Gwen, contando sus reflexiones sobre su vida como pintora, y como esposa y amante de otro pintor, Lucien Freud.
Dos pintoras cuyas vidas parecen conectadas por las circunstancias q les rodean, pq Gwen John fue amante de Rodin y ambas se sintieron tratadas injustamente por la sombra de la fama de sus parejas famosas.
He disfrutado muchísimo descubriendo datos biográficos de las dos, comprendiendo sus temores y sus obsesiones con la pintura y con ese deseo de ser reconocidas sin la etiqueta de musas de sus parejas. Una lucha por su arte y su independencia, mientras se aferran a un amor q les absorbe. Ha sido maravilloso comprender e imaginar todo el proceso creativo de sus pinturas y descubrir los resultados.
Un libro q además viene con las imágenes de los cuadros mencionados, aunq la pena es q las imágenes vienen en blanco y negro. Aún así, me ha parecido una joya y un libro maravilloso q os recomiendo, pq como bien explica la autora:
"Las dos somos pintoras. Podríamos conectarnos a través de imágenes con nuestro propio lenguaje sin voz. Pero las palabras son un medio de comunicación más directo. Así q voy a intentarlo, me acercaré con palabras."
En el carrusel algunos de los cuadros mencionados y que más me han gustado y los libros q se mencionan. Lo dicho, q lo dusfrutéis❤️
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February 25, 2024"Queridísima Gwen:
Sé que esta carta es una ilusión. Sé que estás muerta y yo estoy viva, y que ninguna comunicación normal es posible entre nosotras, pero "el tiempo es una sustancia extraña", como decía mi madre [...] Quizá el sonido de la marea y el agua que fluye son en realidad el eco de las voces que quedaron distorsionadas con los años."
"Me he retratado en poses silenciosas, sentada, quieta como una estatua, y sé que has hecho lo mismo. A través tuyo podría descubrir cómo llegué a convertirme en piedra pintada."
Sé que esta carta es una ilusión. Sé que estás muerta y yo estoy viva, y que ninguna comunicación normal es posible entre nosotras, pero "el tiempo es una sustancia extraña", como decía mi madre [...] Quizá el sonido de la marea y el agua que fluye son en realidad el eco de las voces que quedaron distorsionadas con los años."
"Me he retratado en poses silenciosas, sentada, quieta como una estatua, y sé que has hecho lo mismo. A través tuyo podría descubrir cómo llegué a convertirme en piedra pintada."
February 6, 2025
Qué hermoso que escribe Celia Paul 🤍 Cuánta sensibilidad y cariño tan sincero que hay en estas cartas destinadas a Gwen John. Luego de su "Autorretrato", este libro termina por confirmar mi amor por su escritura, sus pinturas y sus reflexiones en torno a su vida, el arte y su círculo de gente más cercana. La traducción de Esther Cross y la edición de Chai es bellísima :-)
November 22, 2023
Bonic però molt molt lent
September 13, 2024
An intimate venture into two artists lives via letters from celia to gwen. It was so interesting and comparative. Yay for women
February 9, 2023
I finished Celia Paul’s Letters to Gwen John yesterday and I’m somewhat relieved that it’s over.
Her story is compelling, in particular her talent for conveying her need for isolation, however, I struggled to enjoy reading a book so cold, slow paced and still.
Passages and good chunks of her letters are gripping; the way she brings Gwen John to life is nuanced and you can tell she’s fascinated with the eerily symmetrical lives they’ve experienced. That being said, I did feel at times as though this relationship was forced upon Paul and she had committed herself to a writing exercise for longer than she would have liked. There didn’t seem to be a natural end, instead it felt as though is was dragged out until the publishers deemed the book long enough & all topics had become much too repetitive and samey.
This is the second book I’ve read from Celia Paul, but I think it’d be happy to end my relationship there and call it a day.
Her story is compelling, in particular her talent for conveying her need for isolation, however, I struggled to enjoy reading a book so cold, slow paced and still.
Passages and good chunks of her letters are gripping; the way she brings Gwen John to life is nuanced and you can tell she’s fascinated with the eerily symmetrical lives they’ve experienced. That being said, I did feel at times as though this relationship was forced upon Paul and she had committed herself to a writing exercise for longer than she would have liked. There didn’t seem to be a natural end, instead it felt as though is was dragged out until the publishers deemed the book long enough & all topics had become much too repetitive and samey.
This is the second book I’ve read from Celia Paul, but I think it’d be happy to end my relationship there and call it a day.
July 18, 2022
Melancholy and luminous.
June 7, 2024
"Cada cual vive su vida, que sea a conciencia, y que sea con valentía"- Gwen John.
December 24, 2023
This is an extraordinary book chronicling Paul's life and linking it to Gwen John's, a fellow artist who died before Celia Paul was born. Yes, it's a conceit of sorts, but it also pushes back the belief we have that only proximity (time and space) can allow a relationship, and yet how many of us believe in Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha? How many of us adore Hendrix or Taylor Swift, the art of Vermeer, of Banksy, the acting of Emma Thompson or Clark Gable, the books written by Austen, etc - you get my point, connection is not inhibited by the here and now.
PLUS there is art to look at including the wonderful seascapes of Celia Paul.
SPOILER
This is an epistolary book focusing on relationships, primarily those of Celia's lover Lucien and Gwen's ex, Rodin. They were abusive relationships that began when both women were young, Gwen was 27 and Celia was 19. Both men were much older - I mean, MUCH older - 30 plus yrs, and were already well regarded as artists. Lucien met Celia when she was studying at Slade School of Fine Art, he was her tutor. Both Gwen and Celia sat for their respective creepy old men, which required posing nude, a major perk of the job for any even slightly unscrupulous male who couldn't/can't separate the person-as-subject-matter from sexy-bird-who-wants-dick.
The relationships with these two men were complicated by the fact Gwen John got OCD whenever she fell in love and Celia was so young and immature. Both women painted, either through compulsion or love (or both), and yet they were always working in the shadow of Lucien and Rodin, to the point where they interfered with possible opportunities.
In many ways the most heartbreaking element to the book rests with Celia who is a giver. Givers are often milked by those around them. While Celia's mother loved her I still find it incredible to think she was happy to take on her newborn grandson - so Celia could work, but also to off-set the grief she felt when she became a widow - while Celia would take herself off to London and work on paintings. Couldn't there have been something closer to a compromise than that? It's almost Biblical "He gave his only son", and just as odd.
However, I do believe Gwen John had some sort of mental health issue, either brought on by the relationship with Augustus, or simply part of her DNA. Mostly it manifested within her intimate relationships, but it also seemed to get worse as she aged. Celia had similar oddities, particularly her need for such austerity - not minimalism - which almost seems monastic.
Finally my one bugbear, the "handshake" at the end of each chapter. It was laughably British.
BUT everything else was lit up with honesty and deep insight into art and how it speaks to the viewer, especially one as sensitive as Celia. A wonder of a book.
PLUS there is art to look at including the wonderful seascapes of Celia Paul.
SPOILER
This is an epistolary book focusing on relationships, primarily those of Celia's lover Lucien and Gwen's ex, Rodin. They were abusive relationships that began when both women were young, Gwen was 27 and Celia was 19. Both men were much older - I mean, MUCH older - 30 plus yrs, and were already well regarded as artists. Lucien met Celia when she was studying at Slade School of Fine Art, he was her tutor. Both Gwen and Celia sat for their respective creepy old men, which required posing nude, a major perk of the job for any even slightly unscrupulous male who couldn't/can't separate the person-as-subject-matter from sexy-bird-who-wants-dick.
The relationships with these two men were complicated by the fact Gwen John got OCD whenever she fell in love and Celia was so young and immature. Both women painted, either through compulsion or love (or both), and yet they were always working in the shadow of Lucien and Rodin, to the point where they interfered with possible opportunities.
In many ways the most heartbreaking element to the book rests with Celia who is a giver. Givers are often milked by those around them. While Celia's mother loved her I still find it incredible to think she was happy to take on her newborn grandson - so Celia could work, but also to off-set the grief she felt when she became a widow - while Celia would take herself off to London and work on paintings. Couldn't there have been something closer to a compromise than that? It's almost Biblical "He gave his only son", and just as odd.
However, I do believe Gwen John had some sort of mental health issue, either brought on by the relationship with Augustus, or simply part of her DNA. Mostly it manifested within her intimate relationships, but it also seemed to get worse as she aged. Celia had similar oddities, particularly her need for such austerity - not minimalism - which almost seems monastic.
Finally my one bugbear, the "handshake" at the end of each chapter. It was laughably British.
BUT everything else was lit up with honesty and deep insight into art and how it speaks to the viewer, especially one as sensitive as Celia. A wonder of a book.
April 6, 2023
Celia Paul feels a profound connection, kinship, and sympathy, to another artist, Gwen John, who died 20 years prior to Paul's birth. This means these are imagined, impossible letters. Nonetheless, they are sincere. They speak of womanhood, solitude, aging, about being an artist, about being a partner or a lover to a more famous male artist, experiences both Celia and Gwen share. The writing is delicate and even lake-like in its quietness, but there is an intensity beneath this quietness like veins pulsing beneath thin and pale skin.
Celia asks vulnerable questions: whether she failed as a mother, partner, human, daughter, and if her ways of finding peace may have harmed others—her silences and solitude, her need for stillness, her constant guarding of the self, something Gwen also held in esteem. Both found it essential to have a room of one’s own.
Gwen was also shadowed by her male counterparts, by her brother, Augustus, and by her famous partner, Rodin. Both were visited by these famous artists—Celia by Lucien Freud, Gwen by Rodin—in order to be made love to. Celia writes about Gwen: “She felt that he respected her intellect, not just that her body was useful to him for his art." Yet I wonder how such experiences shaped her sense and position of being in the world.
There are also windows into being a model for a painting or a sculpture by someone they love, into sittings coloured by feelings, silent and intense, the sittings which seem to be offered as submissive acts by the model, and as control by the artist. For it is also a book about control, about gaining and losing control, and about yearning within one's solitude—solitude that is felt both as a necessity and a constrain, solitude that may also be a wall keeping out the thing that is absent but profoundly felt: an intimate connection to the world or to another body.
It is an extraordinary thought that someone may speak to us as kindly and as thoughtfully as Celia speaks to Gwen at a time when we may no longer be. That someone may yearn to still understand us. To know us. There is an intimacy to her letters, a form of love. I wanted to ask Celia, because she writes these impossible letters: what is haunting you? Her book—thought-provoking, sincere—is her answer.
Celia asks vulnerable questions: whether she failed as a mother, partner, human, daughter, and if her ways of finding peace may have harmed others—her silences and solitude, her need for stillness, her constant guarding of the self, something Gwen also held in esteem. Both found it essential to have a room of one’s own.
Gwen was also shadowed by her male counterparts, by her brother, Augustus, and by her famous partner, Rodin. Both were visited by these famous artists—Celia by Lucien Freud, Gwen by Rodin—in order to be made love to. Celia writes about Gwen: “She felt that he respected her intellect, not just that her body was useful to him for his art." Yet I wonder how such experiences shaped her sense and position of being in the world.
There are also windows into being a model for a painting or a sculpture by someone they love, into sittings coloured by feelings, silent and intense, the sittings which seem to be offered as submissive acts by the model, and as control by the artist. For it is also a book about control, about gaining and losing control, and about yearning within one's solitude—solitude that is felt both as a necessity and a constrain, solitude that may also be a wall keeping out the thing that is absent but profoundly felt: an intimate connection to the world or to another body.
It is an extraordinary thought that someone may speak to us as kindly and as thoughtfully as Celia speaks to Gwen at a time when we may no longer be. That someone may yearn to still understand us. To know us. There is an intimacy to her letters, a form of love. I wanted to ask Celia, because she writes these impossible letters: what is haunting you? Her book—thought-provoking, sincere—is her answer.
January 15, 2025
“You were not self-destructive out of a desire to be a victim in a narcissistic way. Your goal was Great Art and you knew you had to make sacrifices to attain it.” Celia Paul follows up her memoir Self-Portrait with a second book she never thought she would write: Letters to Gwen John, a series of letters, interspersed with more straightforward biographical writing, exploring the ties between Celia Paul and Gwen John, two artists with much in common, though they had never met, Paul being born twenty years after the death of John. Paul conjures John’s life and essence with such care and beauty, and also makes frequent references to other artists and figures, from Van Gogh (with his letters to his brother Theo) to the Brontë sisters, especially Charlotte’s novel Villette; she offers up some devastating writing on loneliness, and also lots of insight into the pandemic, chiefly through pauses in Paul’s letters to John between spring and September 2020, and the shifting focus to looking at the natural world. I’ve been trying for weeks to articulate my love for this book, for Paul’s work and writing and sense of the world, and continue to fail. Instead, take some of my favourite lines: “She has made her choice: she is going to side with loss and solitude, like the saints. She is going to be a great artist even if it means complete deprivation.” “We only have words. We break open the barrier of skin with our mouths and try to utter some sort of grotesque caricature of the woundedness we all of us feel.” “It makes me feel less alone to know you understand.”
June 20, 2022
A DRC was provided by Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and eye-opened review.
The perfect pairing of two English women artists by the contemporary Paul reaching out to the late Victorian early 20th century John through a series of letters that are as revealing about Paul as John. I didn't deeply engage with Paul's past memoir, despite the obvious interest of a life growing up as a sheltered boarding school type, a talented student at the Slade School of Art, seduced there by a much older Lucian Freud, losing her way with her art in the association with him, bearing his child and separating from Freud (but first him buying her a highly desirable flat/studio in Bloomsbury which makes much of her suffering worthwhile, IMO), then finding in her steadfast dedication to her painting a way to self-fulfillment. I found her so self-contained and careful in her commentary on her life that I kept reminding myself she really is a good painter if not an engaging writer and thought perhaps she had been persuaded to write the memoir by more prurient types, eager to make a buck out of Freud's muse (which she detests being called.) Here taking the focus off herself to look at John's paintings frees her up a bit to have opinions on what their art and lives have in common - the attraction to the monastic life to enable great painting for one, far more interesting than their masochistic relationships with older famous male artists (Rodin for John.) I only hope that this books brings a big more attention to both of their work in the States - they really both are first rate.
The perfect pairing of two English women artists by the contemporary Paul reaching out to the late Victorian early 20th century John through a series of letters that are as revealing about Paul as John. I didn't deeply engage with Paul's past memoir, despite the obvious interest of a life growing up as a sheltered boarding school type, a talented student at the Slade School of Art, seduced there by a much older Lucian Freud, losing her way with her art in the association with him, bearing his child and separating from Freud (but first him buying her a highly desirable flat/studio in Bloomsbury which makes much of her suffering worthwhile, IMO), then finding in her steadfast dedication to her painting a way to self-fulfillment. I found her so self-contained and careful in her commentary on her life that I kept reminding myself she really is a good painter if not an engaging writer and thought perhaps she had been persuaded to write the memoir by more prurient types, eager to make a buck out of Freud's muse (which she detests being called.) Here taking the focus off herself to look at John's paintings frees her up a bit to have opinions on what their art and lives have in common - the attraction to the monastic life to enable great painting for one, far more interesting than their masochistic relationships with older famous male artists (Rodin for John.) I only hope that this books brings a big more attention to both of their work in the States - they really both are first rate.
October 20, 2024
No conocía a ninguna de las dos pintoras protagonistas de este singular libro, en el que una de ellas, Celia Paul, entabla desde el presente una correspondencia epistolar con Gwen John, fallecida hace 80 años.
Celia Paul va narrando a Gwen John anécdotas de su vida, recuerdos de su relación con Lucien Freud y, sobre todo, la importancia capital que el arte ha tenido y tiene en su vida, aun habiéndole recluido en la soledad.
A lo largo de casi dos años, Celia Paul va desgranando las similitudes entre la biografía y la obra de ambas pintoras, demostrando la admiración que siente por Gwen John y el afecto con que le pide consejos para realizar su obra y para afrontar las vicisitudes que atraviesa en su vida. Ambas se vieron afectadas por la relación con dos artistas mayores que marcaron sus vidas : Auguste Rodin, en el caso de John, y Lucien Freud, en el de Celia Paul. "Una de las principales razones que me mueven a hablarte es esta: cada vez soy más consciente de que se refieren a nosotras con relación a los hombres. No nos consideran artistas autónomas".
Con una prosa muy cuidada, Celia Paul nos describe su lucha por vivir su vida y crear su obra con independencia, con una dedicación absoluta al arte.
Sus reflexiones sobre la vida, el amor, la amistad, el arte, el tiempo, la naturaleza... son hermosas.
Es un bello libro que me ha inducido a buscar más información sobre estas dos artistas.
Celia Paul va narrando a Gwen John anécdotas de su vida, recuerdos de su relación con Lucien Freud y, sobre todo, la importancia capital que el arte ha tenido y tiene en su vida, aun habiéndole recluido en la soledad.
A lo largo de casi dos años, Celia Paul va desgranando las similitudes entre la biografía y la obra de ambas pintoras, demostrando la admiración que siente por Gwen John y el afecto con que le pide consejos para realizar su obra y para afrontar las vicisitudes que atraviesa en su vida. Ambas se vieron afectadas por la relación con dos artistas mayores que marcaron sus vidas : Auguste Rodin, en el caso de John, y Lucien Freud, en el de Celia Paul. "Una de las principales razones que me mueven a hablarte es esta: cada vez soy más consciente de que se refieren a nosotras con relación a los hombres. No nos consideran artistas autónomas".
Con una prosa muy cuidada, Celia Paul nos describe su lucha por vivir su vida y crear su obra con independencia, con una dedicación absoluta al arte.
Sus reflexiones sobre la vida, el amor, la amistad, el arte, el tiempo, la naturaleza... son hermosas.
Es un bello libro que me ha inducido a buscar más información sobre estas dos artistas.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2025
Está lindo, pero se pasa un poco con el tono nostálgico que atraviesa todo el libro. Había leído Autorretrato de Celia Paul, que es una memoria, y algunas anotaciones y reflexiones que hace en ese libro un poco aparecen por acá. Hace un ejercicio que me pareció bonito al principio que fue escribirle cartas a otra pintora, ya muerta que se llama Gwen John. Lo que sí está bueno es que se trata de dos pintoras que tienen su propio mundo artístico, pero además fueron parejas de dos pintores famosos, Gwen John de Rodin, y Celia Paul de Lucien Freud.
Una cosa que me gustó mucho fue el que una de las cosas en las que se identifican es en el hecho de que necesitan de su soledad para pintar, el cuarto propio, que es algo que creo que todas las personas creativas necesitan, pero que por lo menos a mi por mucho tiempo me dio culpa el necesitarlo. Pero todo el mundo que tenga una vida creativa necesita de un espacio para crear, y no es egoísta pedirlo. Creo que la reflexión a la que me lleva este libro no es solo esa, pero fue la que más me gustó.
Igual pienso que tiene momentos preciosos, pero podría haber sido más corto.
Una cosa que me gustó mucho fue el que una de las cosas en las que se identifican es en el hecho de que necesitan de su soledad para pintar, el cuarto propio, que es algo que creo que todas las personas creativas necesitan, pero que por lo menos a mi por mucho tiempo me dio culpa el necesitarlo. Pero todo el mundo que tenga una vida creativa necesita de un espacio para crear, y no es egoísta pedirlo. Creo que la reflexión a la que me lleva este libro no es solo esa, pero fue la que más me gustó.
Igual pienso que tiene momentos preciosos, pero podría haber sido más corto.
July 27, 2022
Explaining her preference for observation over storytelling when painting, Celia Paul quotes Roger Fry, a quotation whose final sentence in particular caught my mind (at p. 34):
Why I hate Post Impressionism or any form of subjectivity is because they, its followers, do not see that it is only possible to explain the spirit...by the things of the world, so that the painting of an old mackintosh (I don't pretend to explain how} very carefully and realistically wrought, may be much more spiritual than an abstract landscape. there is no short cut to poetry.
I enjoyed greatly the descriptions of Gwen John's life and the plates of her work; I discovered reading near a computer permitted me to view paintings referenced but not depicted. I understood the "kindred spirit" aspect of the author's life and choices, and also Paul's decision to write Letters to John. But it seemed, to me at least, somewhat forced/contrived.
Having said that, it was enjoyable to see and compare the works of the two artists..
Why I hate Post Impressionism or any form of subjectivity is because they, its followers, do not see that it is only possible to explain the spirit...by the things of the world, so that the painting of an old mackintosh (I don't pretend to explain how} very carefully and realistically wrought, may be much more spiritual than an abstract landscape. there is no short cut to poetry.
I enjoyed greatly the descriptions of Gwen John's life and the plates of her work; I discovered reading near a computer permitted me to view paintings referenced but not depicted. I understood the "kindred spirit" aspect of the author's life and choices, and also Paul's decision to write Letters to John. But it seemed, to me at least, somewhat forced/contrived.
Having said that, it was enjoyable to see and compare the works of the two artists..
February 3, 2023
I had read Self-Portrait by Celia Paul before I read this, and I think that to get the absolute most out of this book, it would be good to have read it too. It's not that the two don't work separately, but reading them together creates a much richer, more satisfying work.
In Self-Portrait, Paul looks at her early life as a painter and the formative experience of having been the long-term lover of Lucian Freud. Here, Paul looks at one of the other great painterly influences on her life, the painter, Gwen John.
Framed as a series of letters to John, Paul uses an exploration of her work and life as a lens by which to view her own work and life. These are more love letters than anything else. They have an element of tenderness and yearning to them that was interestingly missing from her writings about Freud which seemed much more fearful and cowed. It is through her love for John that Paul instils tenderness, a sly humour and a symbolic depth into her work.
In Self-Portrait, Paul looks at her early life as a painter and the formative experience of having been the long-term lover of Lucian Freud. Here, Paul looks at one of the other great painterly influences on her life, the painter, Gwen John.
Framed as a series of letters to John, Paul uses an exploration of her work and life as a lens by which to view her own work and life. These are more love letters than anything else. They have an element of tenderness and yearning to them that was interestingly missing from her writings about Freud which seemed much more fearful and cowed. It is through her love for John that Paul instils tenderness, a sly humour and a symbolic depth into her work.
November 18, 2023
A profoundly moving, vital book, best--but not necessarily--read after Paul's Self-Portrait. The writer is so straightforward, the writing so artless--often beautiful, sometimes a little clumsy, always refreshingly and beautifully unpretentious--that you feel taken into someone's heart. And her life as woman artist, still freeing herself from the shadow of her lover Lucian Freud, who was old enough to be her grandpa when they met, is one many, many women artists/writers can grasp viscerally. I think men should read this book, too.
As it happens, I had just finished reading A Room of One's Own, a book Paul cites. This is her A Room of One's Own, and should be added to syllabi as a complement to it.
As it happens, I had just finished reading A Room of One's Own, a book Paul cites. This is her A Room of One's Own, and should be added to syllabi as a complement to it.
May 28, 2025
Ugh honestly this is a tough call. Some of this was very interesting and Celia Paul sometimes writes really beautifully, but lots of this was drivel. I liked learning about Gwen John, and I thought Paul’s parasocial relationship with her was interesting so the concept intrigued me (although admittedly it does also resemble a primary school creative writing activity ). I think the fine line between flowery, poetic language and overuse of adjectives and similes was crossed and some editing wouldn’t have gone amiss. Also I think more pictures would have been beneficial.
November 26, 2025
I went to a book signing of Celia’s this evening at Hatchards on Piccadilly as part of their annual Christmas evening thing, but she unfortunately unwell. Very very disappointing. Loved the book though and am mad I didn’t read it sooner. Coincidentally, I finished it while in Bloomsbury near where she lives and works (she talks about the area and exact streets in her books lots, it’s not weird I know this) as I wanted to go to LRB and the new St John’s next door.
Wonderful concept, very relatable and made me think about my own life and work, and currently, how’s much I miss painting!
Wonderful concept, very relatable and made me think about my own life and work, and currently, how’s much I miss painting!
May 20, 2024
A wonderful concept between two similar characters. Beautifully presented on good quality paper. Celia Paul relies much on her notoriety being the lover of a predatory Lucian Freud when young. However, she has a similar work ethic in keeping others out of her studio. Her letters to and comments regarding Gwen John are intimate, reflective and truthful. Gwen John’s paintings are sublime, If only Celia Paul’s painting was better. Her previous self portraits were wonderfully haunting.
December 24, 2025
I’m finishing up the year with a book that I started back at the beginning. Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul has followed me through it all; a conversation between two artists, it is quietly forceful and it rounds out a year which has felt that way too.
“Your memories of the sea were filled with a bracing wind, the horizon meandering as if warped by the waves and wind. You would have to understand that, when you looked at my paintings.”
“Your memories of the sea were filled with a bracing wind, the horizon meandering as if warped by the waves and wind. You would have to understand that, when you looked at my paintings.”
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August 6, 2023I found this to be a really moving account of a life in art. The connections Paul draws between herself and John are strong, so it always feels like the general concept of the book (that it is a memoir told through letters written to John whilst also being a biography (of sorts) of John's life) feels satisfying.
As with Self Portrait, Paul's prose is excellent.
As with Self Portrait, Paul's prose is excellent.
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