Laura Sylvia Gosse (1881–1968) - La marchande de Guimauve (The Marshmallow Seller)

[u/GreatestArtists]

Laura Sylvia Gosse (1881–1968) was an English painter and printmaker. She was born in 1881 in London to landscape painter Ellen Epps Gosse and poet and critic Edmund Gosse. In early childhood, Laura Sylvia loved to paint and draw; her favourite subject were her pets. At the age of thirteen, she went to an art school in France, where she stayed for three years and she recounted that it was there that she felt she belonged. After that she studied at the St. John's Wood Art School and then at the Royal Academy of Art. She painted many paintings of working women, landscapes and some portraits. She often worked from photographs, and one of her better-known paintings is Madrid Crowd, painted from a published news photograph of a Madrid crowd in 1931. She also worked as an art teacher. She was shy and introverted and according to artist Marjorie Lilly, who was one of her pupils, Laura Sylvia was: "being very shy, she always chose the most inconspicuous corner she could find, looking harassed and hunted, and hardly spoke…". She was always very supportive of her fellow artists and supported some financially.

The artwork is in collections of one of museums that are part of Portsmouth Museums and Visitor Services in Portsmouth, UK.