Florence Engelbach (1872-1951)

               Florence Engelbach (née Neumegen) was an English artist born in Spain. She received a first class art education at the Westminster School of Art followed by the Slade School of Art in London under the tutelage of Fred Brown (1851-1941). Brown was headmaster of Westminster School of Art (1877-1892) and then Professor of Art at the Slade (1893-1918). He was a founder of the New English Art Club (NEAC) in 1886 and authored its constitution. As an artist, he had finished his training in Paris at the renowned Académie Julian and was greatly influenced by the bravura and academic styles of painting typified by Bastien-LePage, Whistler and William-Adolphe Bouguereau, who was his contemporary at the Académie Julian. In his role as a teacher, Brown promoted the careers of many influential British artists (Augustus John, William Orpen, Wyndham Lewis, Henry Charles Brewer) including Emily Beatrice Bland (1864-1951) who was a contemporary of Engelbach at the Slade and a future member of the NEAC. Henry Tonks (1862-1937) was another influential teacher and NEAC member who was at the Slade during the mid 1890s when Engelbach was studying there. Tonks was an associate of Whistler, Sickert and Sargent, and is credited with helping to introduce French Impressionism to late Victorian art.

Viewed through this art historical lens, the paintings of Engelbach can be seen as a reflection of the swiftly changing attitudes and ideals of the time. Encouraged by her teachers, she finished her training in Paris. She became particularly well-known for her flower paintings, but also produced many portraits, figure studies and landscapes later in her career. Her paintings display a graphical confidence with form and challenge ideas of finish, texture, materiality and perspective, clearly influenced by the post-impressionist milieu that she experienced in Paris.

Engelbach had a promising early career, exhibiting at the Salon in Paris and the Royal Academy in London. However she put her career on hold following her marriage in 1902 in order to raise her family. She eventually returned to painting in the late 1920s and had a solo exhibition at London’s Beaux Arts Gallery in 1931 (the preeminent London gallery with a reputation for promoting the avant-garde). She exhibited once again at the Royal Academy and Paris Salon and was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the National Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers/ Printmakers. She was represented by several significant London based galleries as she continued to produce work inspired by her garden in Warwickshire during the last two decades of her life. A memorial exhibition was held at the Leicester Galleries in London in 1951. Her work is held by various significant private, corporate and public collections including by The Tate galleries.