Explore: Jessica Dismorr

(1885 - 1939)

Jessica Dismorr was born in Gravesend, Kent and moved to Hampstead, London in the 1890s. After the Slade School of Art, she studied in France. In 1912 she took part in a group exhibition in London where her decorative style of her painting was compared to the Scottish Colourists. In June 1914 she was one of 11 artists, who with Wyndham Lewis, signed the Vorticist manifesto. In 1925, a solo exhibition of her work at the Mayor Gallery, London, including watercolours of Italy, France and Spain was critically well received. In the 1930s Dismorr lived in London and Sussex, mixing with artists such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. After suffering bouts of depression, she committed suicide at the age of 54 in 1939.