A recently discovered watercolour painting by Olive Hockin, Theosophist, Suffragette, and artist. She was influenced by spiritual and occult matters, and this painting shows a mystical woodland scene with the god Pan, Nymphs, and Dryads - beings she believed she could see. The style is reminiscent of the Pre-Raphaelites, and Victorian Fairy paintings, but has a definite magic of its own; dated 1914.
Olive Hockin, like many Theosophian women artists, studied at the Slade School of Art in 1901-3 & again in 1910-11; she also wrote for Orpheus, the magazine of the Theosophical Art Circle. As one of several leaders of the Suffragette movement suspected of plotting to kill the Prime Minister, she was arrested and imprisoned for four months in 1909, taking with her prints of Love and Death by G F Watts and The Golden Stairs by Edward Burne-Jones She worked as a land-girl during World War One and wrote a book, Two Girls on the Land. She married John Leared, a trainer of polo ponies and had two children: she died in 1936 but her descendants still treasure her work....
