Gray had lost touch with Gerald Kelly when he returned to London.82 Kelly stated that the reason the group of friends disbanded and lost contact was due to Haweis’s marriage to Loy. He wrote: ‘Stephen Haweis had a curious position among the students in Paris. He married a very beautiful woman but I never saw anything of him afterward’.83 Kelly’s Irish connections were exceedingly strong and he exhibited regularly at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) between 1905 and 1969, at the Oireachtas Art Exhibition in 1932 and the Ulster Academy of Arts in 1948. Kelly’s first patron was the Irish art collector, dealer and critic Sir Hugh Lane. He was recommended to Lane by another Irish artist, Sarah Purser (1848-1943), resulting in Lane awarding Kelly his first twenty commissions. Kelly was knighted in 1945 and died in London in 1972. Gray followed Kelly’s successful and prestigious career, writing to Haweis ‘that certainly Kelly had the right temperament to be successful as an artist’.84 By the 1960s she rarely visited London but wrote in a letter to Haweis dated 27 November 1961, ‘I didn’t get to see Kelly’s show at the RA or hear anything about it, I am rarely in London, but had I been, would certainly have gone’. Despite his success in England Gray felt that, ‘No one outside of England has ever heard of Kelly, yet he was of the same generation as Picasso, Léger, Miró, Rouault, Modigliani and their light shines all over the world’.85
Haweis lamented the loss of his friendship with Paul Henry. In the late spring-early summer of 1900 Henry met Emily Grace Mitchell (1868-1953), who would become his wife in 1903. This relationship came between the two men, as Grace saw Haweis as an unfit associate who would lead Henry into sinful ways.86 In December of 1900, due to lack of finances and the need to earn a living, Henry departed Paris for London. Years later, just as with Gray, Henry and Haweis resumed correspondence.
They also all separated from Crowley. If Gray was secretly engaged to Crowley there is the suggestion that she did it to render Stephen Haweis jealous. Gray and Haweis lost contact with Aleister Crowley after his marriage to Rose Kelly. Gerald Kelly fell out with Crowley due to the scandalous elopement with his sister.87 Gray appears to have remained amicable with him, whereas Haweis seems quite resentful about Crowley. He describes in his letters how people fell under Crowley’s influence and how he had a lifelong regret at losing two particular friends due to a ‘quarrel promoted by that rascal Crowley’.88 In another letter he refers to him as, ‘that leper Aleister Crowley’.89 Despite losing her contact with Crowley, Gray remained interested in the occult, which had been advocated and practised by Crowley and their group during their time in Paris. In her letters to Haweis, Gray reveals that she has purchased two books by the American writer Max Freedom Long (1890-1971). Long had lived a long time in Hawaii as a teacher, and witnessed the native Hawaiians practising magic. He was taught a great deal by Kahunas (natives who have occult knowledge). Absorbed into the culture and thinking, from 1936 Long published a series of books on his teachings called the Huna. He also set up a foundation called the Huna Fellowship in 1945. Fascinated by his ideas Gray firstly purchased The Secret Science Behind Miracles in 1948, saying to Haweis how Long ‘discovered an unknown religion which strange to say, worked’.90 Then in 1953 she bought The Secret Science at Work telling Haweis that ‘the book has been written for people who intend to learn seriously their theory and to practise it’.91
2.20 Augustus John, by George Charles Beresford, 1902, sepia platino type print © National Portrait Gallery, London
Mary Katherine Constance Lloyd is mentioned in several letters between Gray and Haweis.92 Lloyd was from Birmingham and her career flourished during the 1920s and 30s. She had attended the Slade in 1896-97. She was good friends with Gwen John (1876-1939), who had also attended the Slade in 1895-98. Both Haweis and Gray also knew Augustus John. Gwen John became Rodin’s model in 1904 and eventually his lover. By 1903 Lloyd was in Venice painting a series of cityscapes. During the 1950s Haweis learned that ‘Lloyd was still painting and had her first successful solo show at 72 years of age at Groupils in London’.93 Lloyd went to Dominica and stayed with Haweis for two months at the beginning of 1953. He looked forward to her visit writing, ‘I think it will be great fun meeting one who belongs to our time in Paris’.94 Gray asks after Katherine Constance Lloyd in numerous letters.95 Fearful that many from their milieu have died, Gray complains that ‘All the old birds are giving up’.96 However, Gray indicates that they were merely acquaintances, Gray being told that Lloyd disliked her.97
ENDNOTES
1NMIEG 2003.449, NMIEG 2003.450 and NMIEG 2003.451, letters from Renée Chipman to Eileen Gray, 9 February 1974, 16 January 1975, and undated.
2Adam, Peter, Eileen Gray: Architect/Designer: A Biography, London, Thames and Hudson, 2000, p.11.
3Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, Easter Monday, year unknown.
4Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, letter from Eileen Gray to Stephen Haweis, 5 June 1958.
5Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, Stephen Haweis Papers, Arranged Miscellaneous Memoirs, Box 2, memoirs dated 20 February 1900.
6Burke, Carolyn, Becoming Modern: the Life of Mina Loy, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996, p.82.
7Spalding, Francis, Prunella Clough Regions Unmapped, London, Lund Humphries, 2012, p.12.