Gladys Hynes

Though largely forgotten today, Gladys Hynes (1888–1958) was a pioneering artist whose life and work reflect the radical, turbulent and often contradictory currents of the first half of the twentieth century

Born in India to Irish and English ancestry, Gladys Hynes was not only a gifted painter, sculptor, illustrator and designer but also a radical—pacifist, feminist, suffragist and Irish Republican. Over five decades, she produced an exceptional body of work that engaged with the key movements of her time, ranging from the Newlyn School and Omega Workshops to Vorticism and Surrealism.

Hynes moved in an extraordinary circle of creative, intellectual and political figures. Among her closest friends were fellow artists and writers Mary Butts, Nina Hammett, Laura Knight, Gluck and Dod Procter; in Irish politics, Desmond and Mabel FitzGerald and Capt. Jack White. Her greatest and most influential friendship was with the controversial and avant-garde poet Ezra Pound, whose Cantos she illustrated. These intellectual and artistic exchanges significantly shaped Hynes’s life and development as an artist.

Hynes’s legacy has been almost entirely overlooked. By shedding light on her artistic achievements, activism and feminist vision, this biography seeks to restore Hynes to her rightful place within the modernist canon as a remarkable woman whose influence, long neglected, is now ripe for rediscovery.