Eva Leigh

Eva Mary Walker (18 October 1895 – 9 August 1981), known professionally as Eva Leigh, was an English portrait and silhouette artist in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. An exhibition of her portraits was shown at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, from May to September 2024, using examples of her work from the gallery's collection.

Background

Leigh was born into a working-class Anglican family based in the West Yorkshire industrial districts of Bradford and Leeds. Her paternal great grandfather was tobacconist Joseph Walker. Her paternal grandfather James Walker was a drysalter, living in Woodhouse, Leeds. In 1862, in Leeds, he married Mary Rebecca Leigh, the daughter of dentist Samuel George Leigh. The eldest of their five children was Samuel Leigh Walker.

Leigh was born in Bradford as Eva Mary Walker, the eldest child of Samuel Leigh Walker, a buyer for the woollen trade, and his wife Florence Ada Walker née Tennant. Walker and Tennant were married on 5 January 1895 at All Hallows Church, 24 Regent Terrace, Leeds. She had three brothers named Richard Walter, Joseph Charles and Frederick Ernest, According to historian Fiona Young and the University of Bradford lecturer Colin Neville, she was trained at Bradford School of Art just before the First World War, She was cremated at Stonefall Cemetery, Harrogate. Her studio, a "tiny flat up many stairs ... cluttered and chaotic", above the Grosvenor Galleries. There she created portraits in the form of silhouettes, paintings, pastel and pencil. Her silhouettes were different from the traditional cut paper form; they were India ink drawings. According to Fiona Young, the silhouette work "was meticulous and demanding and [Leigh] was known to suffer from eye strain from time to time". According to Fiona Young, "her financial position was always somewhat precarious ... within her family she had the reputation for being permanently broke and was always borrowing money". Leigh followed the Theosophy movement alongside her own lifelong interest in Hinduism and Buddhism. One of Leigh's portrait subjects was Hodgson Alfred Smith, the president of Harrogate Theosophy Lodge, where Leigh was once invited to address a meeting. She had a Hindu teacher, Professor Hari Prasad Shastri who, according to Fiona Young, asked her to "start a circle for the study of oriental philosophy", and she was also interested in the paranormal, and "dabbled in astrology". Fiona Young (2024) contains a reproduction of a portrait by Leigh of Kathleen Rutherford. Colin Neville asserts that she also exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions on an unknown date.

Collections and rediscovery

In her later years, Leigh's work was largely forgotten by the public. In summer 2024, the Friends of the Mercer Art Gallery funded an exhibition of her work at the gallery, thus finally bringing Leigh's work fully into the public arena.