Gwen John : Strange Beauties

The first comprehensive survey in 40 years brings new scholarly attention and a feminist perspective to the Welsh painter with a singular vision of female interior life

Gwen John (1876–1939), best known for her portraits of women depicted in close tonal registers, was overshadowed during her life by her relationships with men, including her brother, the painter Augustus John, and lover, the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. In recent years, leading art historians and curators have shed new light on John’s significant contributions to British art, her connection to European modernism, and her serial process. Gwen John: Strange Beauties builds on this groundwork, bringing together the artist’s distinctive oil paintings with rarely seen works on paper to illuminate the underexamined scope of her ambition, revealing lesser-known aspects of her practice—a vibrant use of color, plein air sketching and an interplay between figuration and abstraction.

 Published by the Yale Center for British Art in association with Amgueddfa Cymru–National Museum Wales/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: Amgueddfa Cymru–National Museum Wales, Cardiff(February 7–June 28, 2026) National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh(August 1, 2026–January 4, 2027) Yale Center for British Art(February 18–June 20, 2027) National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC(July 30–November 28, 2027)

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