Nina Hamnett
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Nina Hamnett (14 February 1890 – 16 December 1956) was a Welsh artist and writer, and an expert on sailors' shanties, who became known as the Queen of Bohemia.


Early life

Hamnett was born in the small coastal town of
Tenby Tenby () is a seaside town and community (Wales), community in the county of Pembrokeshire, Wales. It lies within Carmarthen Bay. Notable features include of sandy beaches and the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, the 13th-century Tenby Town Walls, me ...
,
Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; ) is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and otherwise by the sea. Haverfordwest is the largest town and ...
, Wales, eldest of the four children of George Edward Hamnett (born 1864), a captain in the Royal Army Service Corps, and Mary Elizabeth De Blois (1863/4-1947), daughter of Captain William Edwin Archdeacon, a
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
officer and cartographer. Hamnett was sent to a private boarding school at Westgate-on-Sea before moving on, aged 12, to the Royal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army in
Bath, Somerset Bath (Received Pronunciation, RP: , ) is a city in Somerset, England, known for and named after its Roman Baths (Bath), Roman-built baths. At the 2021 census, the population was 94,092. Bath is in the valley of the River Avon, Bristol, River A ...
from 1902 to 1905. Her father, having been dishonourably discharged from the army, took work as a taxi driver. Her education had to be funded by her aunts and by a loan against a future bequest. From 1906 to 1907 she studied at the Pelham Art School and then at the London School of Art until 1910. In 1914 she went to Montparnasse, Paris to study at Marie Vassilieff's Academy. While studying in London, she met and posed for Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who sculpted a series of nude bronzes. During this period she became friendly with Olivia Shakespear and
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...
. She went on to have a love affair with Brzeska, and later with
Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (; ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor of the École de Paris who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern art, modern style characterized by a surre ...
and
Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and art critic, critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent ...
. On her first night in the Bohemian community she went to the café ''La Rotonde'' where the man at the next table introduced himself as "Modigliani, painter and Jew". In addition to making close friends with Modigliani,
Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
,
Serge Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), also known as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario an ...
, and
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...
, she stayed for a while at La Ruche, where many of the leading members of the avant-garde lived at the time. In Montparnasse in 1914 she also met her future husband, the Norwegian artist Edgar de Bergen, who later changed his name to Roald Kristian to sound less German. She would remain married for forty years, but her relationship with her husband lasted only three years. In 1916 her husband was deported as an unregistered alien. Her work was well regarded by Walter Sickert, who endeavoured to advise her on her painting, but she lacked his dedication and revelled in not taking advice. Sickert used her as a model, and also painted her with her husband in 1915–16 in ''The Little Tea Party: Nina Hamnett and Roald Kristian''.


Flamboyant lifestyle

Flamboyantly unconventional, and openly
bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...
, Hamnett once danced nude on a Montparnasse café table just for the "hell of it". She drank heavily, was sexually promiscuous, and kept numerous lovers and close associations within the artistic community. Very quickly, she became a well-known bohemian personality throughout Paris and modelled for many artists. Her reputation soon reached back to London, where for a time, she went to work making or decorating fabrics, clothes, murals, furniture, and rugs at the Omega Workshops, which was directed by
Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and art critic, critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent ...
,
Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...
, and Duncan Grant. Her artistic creations were widely exhibited during World War I, including at the Royal Academy in London as well as the '' Salon d'Automne'' in Paris. Back in England, she taught at the Westminster Technical Institute from 1917 to 1918. After Kristian left, she took up with another free spirit, composer E. J. Moeran. From the mid-1920s until the end of World War II, the area known as Fitzrovia was London's main Bohemian artistic centre. The place took its name from the popular Fitzroy Tavern on the corner of Charlotte and Windmill Streets that formed the area's centre. Home of the café life in Fitzrovia, it was Hamnett's favourite hangout as well as that of her friend from her home town, Augustus John, and later another Welshman, the poet Dylan Thomas.


Later life

In 1932 Hamnett published ''Laughing Torso'', a tale of her bohemian life, which became a bestseller in the UK and US. The notorious occultist
Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley ( ; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...
unsuccessfully sued her and the publisher for libel over allegations of black magic made in her book. Although she won the case, the situation profoundly affected her for the remainder of her life.
Alcoholism Alcoholism is the continued drinking of alcohol despite it causing problems. Some definitions require evidence of dependence and withdrawal. Problematic use of alcohol has been mentioned in the earliest historical records. The World He ...
would soon overtake her many talents and the tragic "Queen of the Fitzroy" spent a good part of the last few decades of her life at the bar (usually that of the Fitzroy Tavern), trading anecdotes for drinks. Twenty-three years after her first book ''Laughing Torso'' was published, Hamnett, in poor health, released a follow-up book titled: ''Is She a Lady?''. Hamnett died in 1956 from complications after falling out of her apartment window and being impaled on the fence forty feet below. The great debate has always been whether it was a suicide attempt or merely a drunken accident. Her last words were "Why don't they let me die?" The American novelist Julius Horwitz (1920–1986) portrayed Nina Hamnett in his 1964 novel about London during World War Two, titled ''Can I Get There By Candlelight''. Horwitz was stationed outside of London during World War Two, and was befriended by Hamnett as a young soldier when he would go into London on a three-day pass. A biography, ''Nina Hamnett: Queen of Bohemia'' by Denise Hooker, was published in 1986. In 2011, Hamnett was the subject of a short film by writer/director Chris Ward— ''What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor,'' starring Siobhan Fahey. In November 2019, the Fitzrovia Chapel hosted an exhibition called ''Nina Hamnett - Everybody was Furious''.Nina Hamnett - 'Everybody was Furious'
Fitzrovia Chapel. Accessed: 7 November 2023.


See also

* Betty May * List of Bloomsbury Group people


References


External links

* *
Photograph of Nina Hamnett


{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamnett, Nina 1890 births 1956 deaths 20th-century Welsh LGBTQ people 20th-century Welsh painters 20th-century Welsh women artists Bisexual painters Bisexual women artists Bisexual women writers British artists' models Deaths from falls Welsh LGBTQ painters Welsh bisexual writers Welsh bisexual women British modern artists People educated at the Royal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army People from Tenby Welsh women painters 20th-century British women painters