Yevonde ('Junior and the Photographer')
1 portrait of Yevonde
© Mary Evans Picture Library
Yevonde ('Junior and the Photographer')
by Yevonde
semi-matte bromide print on card mount, 5 December 1949
10 3/8 in. x 11 1/4 in. (262 mm x 285 mm)
Given by Yevonde, 1971
Photographs Collection
NPG x26030
On display at The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Sitterback to top
- Yevonde (Madame Yevonde) (Yevonde Middleton (née Cumbers)) (1893-1975), Photographer. Sitter in 15 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 899 portraits.
Artistback to top
- Yevonde (Madame Yevonde) (Yevonde Middleton (née Cumbers)) (1893-1975), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 899 portraits, Sitter in 15 portraits.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Clare Freestone, Yevonde: Life and Colour, 2023 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 22 June to 15 October 2023), p. 32
- Gibson, Robin, The Face in the Corner: Animal Portraits from the Collections of the National Portrait Gallery, 1998, p. 88
- Robin Gibson, Pets in Portraits, 2015, p. 128 Read entry
Although still a little-known name, Madame Yevonde (she was born Yevonde Cumbers) was one of the most colourful and original figures in British photography. Her pioneering work with colour photography in the 1930s was extremely influential and has scarcely been equalled since. This entertaining self-portrait is typical of her always inventive approach to the medium and surely indicative of the importance cats played in her life. She had been happily married to a minor playwright called Edgar Middleton and was devastated by his premature death in 1939. Although not mentioned at all in her entertaining biography, In Camera (1940), it was her cats who seem increasingly to have filled the void left by his death.
The cats had the free run of her studio. Whiskey wormed his way into several of her society portraits in the 1930s, and it was probably he who managed to escape with her to safety seconds before a direct hit on her Berkely Square studio during the Blitz. Junior also appears in other photographs. On the reverse of the mount, Mme Yevonde has inscribed: ‘JUNIOR – Winner of the 1958 Good Conduct Prize offered by the Cats Protection League for the most distinguished cat. He was aged 18 when he disappeared. He is wearing a very early photograph of the photographer.’ Modest as always, the photograph in question cannot in fact have been taken much before 1945.
Events of 1949back to top
Current affairs
Following the Republic of Ireland Act in 1948, the Irish Free State becomes the Republic of Ireland and leaves the Commonwealth. The functions previously given to the King were handed to the President of Ireland.The Second Parliament Act diminishes the power of the House of Lords, reducing their authority to delay bills from two years to one.
Art and science
George Orwell publishes his dystopian novel, 1984. The book imagines a future where totalitarian governments rule; their power based on continual war abroad, and overwhelming propaganda and surveillance at home. With 'Big Brother' keeping a constant check on the citizens' actions and thoughts, the individual loses the faculties of free will and independent thought.International
The People's Republic of China is created after the Communist Party wins the Civil War. China became a communist country under Mao Zedong.Cold War tensions increase as Germany is split into the democratic Federal Republic of Germany in the west (a union of the post-war British, French and American sectors), and the communist German Democratic Republic, in the east.
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See this portrait
On display at The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne