18/10/26
Gladys Hynes: Radical Lives
Charleston in Lewes
2 May – 11 October 2026
Despite being involved in many of the key artistic groups and movements of her time – the Newlyn School, the Omega Workshops, Frank Brangwyn’s London School of Art – Gladys Hynes (1888-1958) has somehow remained an unknown. Doubtless this is due in part to the loss of the majority of her works (she was far better known during her lifetime for her wood carvings than for her paintings) and in part to her gender (in 1950, Hynes said: “I believe part of the trouble is that the world is controlled only by men.”), but why else might someone so connected and well-known fade into obscurity? She was even omitted from the (auto)biographies of her closest friends (including Nina Hamnett’s memoirs and Patricia Hutchins’ biography of Ezra Pound). Whatever the reasons, this exhibition seeks to bring Hynes back into the spotlight. This might have proved difficult, with only a handful of paintings to work with, but the team at Charleston in Lewes has done Hynes proud. Yes, the show is primarily made up of works by Hynes’ contemporaries, but – and I say this only rarely – it really works. If anywhere were to pull it off, this, the companion to the home of the Bloomsberries, where friendships and love affairs were as important as the art itself, would be the place. And Hynes lived by the ethos of making art life and life art. Accordingly, the exhibition highlights Hynes’ close relationships with her artist cohort, including Hamnett, Jacob Epstein, Vanessa Bell, Cedric Morris, Laura Knight, Gluck and Dod Procter.
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