By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-
Emperor Haile Sellassie, at the time of the Italian Fascist invasion
of 1935-6, and for perhaps a decade thereafter, had a major impact on
the world. His broadcasts from Addis Ababa, at the beginning of the
Italian Fascist war, his desperate struggle in the face of the enemy’s
overwhelming superiority in weapons – its use of poison-gas, and above
all his historic speech to the League of Nations at Geneva, Switzerland,
made him for many throughout the world a symbol of the cause of
Collective Security, and resistance to Fascism.
One of those who much admired him, in the second part of the 1930s,
was a British artist and feminist Ernestine Mills, who was a renowned
enamelist and metal worker. It is she to whom we turn our attention
today.
Born 1871
Ernestine Mills (nee Bell) was born in 1871, and, taking a great
interest in art, was
taught, as a child, by Frederic Shields, friend of
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She
was subsequently to publish the “Life and Letters of Frederic Shields”.
Ernestine duly joined the famous Slade School and the South
Kensington School of Art, later the Royal College of Art, both in
London. It was at this latter institution, by coincidence, that my
mother Sylvia Pankhurst, also studied art. Ernestine, again like my
mother, soon afterwards became passionately involved in the struggle in
Britain for Votes for Women.
The Arts and Crafts Movement
Ernestine Mills, as her grand-niece Irene Cockroft, to whom I owe
almost the whole of this story, tells me, worked in the style of the
so-called Arts and Crafts Movement. This went out of fashion in the
middle of the present century, but is now becoming increasingly admired.
Besides working as an artist, Ernestine was a political activist,
involved in the British women’s struggle for the vote, and used her art
for the Suffragette movement. For example she designed badges in the
Suffragette colours, purple, white and green. In 1901 she became a
member of the British Society of Women Artists, and, long afterwards, in
1943-4, served as its Acting President.
Ernestine, again like my mother, was a Socialist. A member of the
Fabian Society, she contributed a paper on the “Origin of the Physical
Disability of Women” to a series of essays read at the Fabian Women’s
Group, way back in 1908-9.
Throughout her long life – she first exhibited at the Royal Academy
in 1900, and lived on until 1959 – she had the distinction of exhibiting
at the prestigious Walker Gallery in Liverpool no less than sixty-one
times.
Precursor of the Welfare State
Ernestine’s husband, Dr Herbert Henry Mills, who, by another
coincidence was my grandmother, Emmeline Pankhurst’s family physician,
and treated one of my uncles, was likewise a figure of distinction. A
staunch advocate of affordable health for the poor, he was a member of
the Advisory Committee involved in the establishment of the National
Insurance Act of 1911, one of the first historic steps towards the
subsequent establishment of the British Welfare State.
Haile Sellassie’s Portrait
But to return to Ernestine and Haile Sellassie: some time around 1936
she produced an enamel portrait of the Emperor, measuring 33.5
centimetres high by 24.5 centimetres wide. It was a good likeness,
depicting the Emperor, with large, alert and expressive eyes, looking
over his shoulder directly at the viewer. The work, a masterpiece of its
kind, was exhibited at an Exhibition organised by the Society of Women
Artists at the Royal Institute Galleries, in Piccadilly, London, in June
1937.
Enter Irene Cockroft
The painting was subsequently presented, after Ernestine’s death, by
her daughter Dr Hermia Mills, to the Ethiopian Embassy in London. With
political changes in Ethiopia, and subsequent turn-over of Embassy
staff, the picture was, not surprisingly, quite forgotten – until
Ernestine’s grand-niece Irene Cockroft appeared on the scene.
Planning an exhibition of Ernestine’s work, to be held at Leighton
House Museum in October and November 2000, Irene contacted the Ethiopian
Embassy, in March 1996. She spoke in particular with a dedicated member
of its staff, Ato Daniel Truneh, who had no knowledge of the portrait,
but kept his eyes open. Not long after this, another staff member, Woiz.
Abeba Negash, while cleaning an Embassy cupboard, came across the
picture. Daniel, on learning of the important discovery, duly informed
Mrs Cockroft, whose husband Da, a professional photographer, took the
fine photograph here reproduced.
So all you have to do, dear reader, is to pencil “Leighton House
Museum October-November” in next year’s diary, to see this and other
remarkable works by Ernestine Mills in the round.
Source: http://www.linkethiopia.org
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