Life
[Eva Hone] b. 22 April, Clonskeagh, Co. Dublin; dg. Joseph Hone; suffered poly at 12; saw consultant pecialist at Ouchy, Switzerland, and visited Italy and Spain; entered Byam Shaw School of Art, London, studying under Meninsky (d.1919), 1913; briefly studied under Walter Sickert in 1918; travelled to Paris, where she worked with André Lhote, 1920; being joined there by Mainie Jellet, they persuaded Albert Gleizes to take them as pupils and worked part of the year with him, 1921-31; showed their work at Dublin Painters Society, 1924; joined a convent of Anglican nuns at Truro, Cornwall, 1925; settled in Lucan, Co. Dublin, with her sister; travelled annually with Jellett; deeply influence by Georges Roualt; moved away from painting to glass; converted to Catholicism; with Jellet she joined Sarah Purser’s studio in 1932;
designed her first window, The Annunciation, for St. Naithi’s, Dundrum, with assistance of Wilhelmina Geddes, 1933; worked at An Túr Gloine, 1935-44 [var. 1933]; kept a studio at Marlay Grange, Rathfarnham; her stained-glass commissions include Crucifixion and Last Supper windows at Eton Chapel (Eton College, Windsor), 1942-52, designs for which are in NGI (Dublin) [83.6.m; 40K pieces of glass]; also renowned for My Four Green Fields, commissioned by the Irish Government for the New York Fair, where it took first prize for stained-glass - and now held in Government Buildings, Dublin; her Church commissions include Stations of the Cross in Kiltullagh Church [RC], Co. Galway; founder member of Living Art founder-member of Living Art [EILA] with Louis le Brocquy et al.; awarded LLD by TCD in 1954; d. 13 March 1955, while going to church at Rathfarnham; a memorial exhibition was held at UCD (Earlsfort Tce.) in 1958; her gravestone was made by Oisin Kelly in the form of a penal cross. BREF DIB DIH
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Criticism
See C[onstantine] P. Curran, ‘Evie Hone, Stained Glass Worker 1894-1955’, Studies, Vol. 44 (Summer 1955); Stella Frost, ed., Evie Hone (1958); Sighle Breathnach-Lynch, Evie Hone: A Pioneering Artist (Dublin: NGI 2005), 1 folded sh. [6]pp., ill. [col.], 30 cm.
The entry in Dictionary of Irish Biography is by Diarmaid Ferriter (2004).
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Commentary
Hilary Pyle, ‘Modern Art in Ireland: An Introduction’,in Éire-Ireland, 4, 4 (Winter 1969), pp.35-41, notes that Hone travelled to London to take lessons from Walter Sickert and Byam Shaw, and was encouraged by Meninsky to go to Paris where she met Mainie Jellett [also from Ireland], the two of them subsequently studying under Lhote and then Albert Gleizes with whom they explored Cubism (p.37).
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References
Henry Boylan, Dictionary of Irish Biography (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1988): b. 22 Apr. Roebuck Grove, Co. Dublin, poliomyelitis, semi-invalid; began to exhibit abstract paintings in Dublin, 1924; deeply religious nature and interest in Rouault; three small panels in Protestant church, Dundrum, her first stained glass commission; best-known works, My Four Green Fields (CIE office, Dublin), five windows for Jesuit college at Tullabeg, and the Eton College windows; produced 150 small stained glass panels and a number of oils and water-colours; d. Rathfarnham, 13 Mar. NOTE that DIH (ed. Hickey and Doherty, 1979) attributes ‘Deposition’ to both Jellett and Hone.
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Notes
Portrait of Evie Hone by Oisin Kelly, bronze bust; see Anne Crookshank, Ulster Mus. 1965; also ‘Evie Hone at Work in her Studio’ by Hilda van Stockum (Nat. Gallery of Ireland), printed as b/w in History Ireland (Summer 1994), p.36.
Stolen art: Six of her works in the SS. Peter and Paul Church in at Kiltullagh, Co. Galway, were stolen by art thieves in June 2021 - leaving eight which went into safe-keeping. Commissioned in 1945-49, the works formed part of a Stations of the Cross commission sketches for which were sold at auction for 40,000. (Irish Times, 24 June 2013.)
Penal Cross: Evie Hone’s gravestone sculpted by Oisin Kelly in the form of a penal cross was vandalised in 2024.
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