Aur o Gymru’r Oes Efydd

Cat studies

JOHN, Gwen (Bu Gwen John yn mynychu Ysgol Gelfyddyd Gain y Slade yn Llundain rhwng 1895 a 1898, a bu'n astudio am gyfnod byr ym Mharis. Ym 1903, aeth gyda Dorelia McNeill ar daith gerdded trwy Ffrainc. Erbyn dechrau 1904, roedd wedi ymsefydlu ym Mharis. | Gwen John attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London between 1895 and 1898, and studied briefly in Paris. In 1903, she accompanied Dorelia McNeill on a walking tour through France. By the beginning of 1904, she had settled in Paris.)

Gwen John acquired her first cat in 1904. It was a tortoiseshell cat that she named Edgar Quinet after the street in which she was living. She frequently captured her adored cats in spontaneous drawings. Gwen John wrote about one of her cats: ‘she is very important, perhaps the most important thing but that ought not to be, n’est pas?’. Edgar Quinet disappeared in 1908, John was devastated and even wrote a poem about her loss.