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Michael Blaker R.E.
(Hove 1928 – 2018 Ramsgate)
Girl in a long dress – Diana (Ida John’s dress)
Girl in a long dress – Diana (Ida John’s dress)
374 x 278 mm
Original etching, 1971-73.
The plate signed.
Signed in pencil, entitled and numbered 2/30.
Printed in brown-black ink, with plate tone, on stiff wove.
£300
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Additional
Information about the Print
A study of Diana de Vere Cole (née Cook) wearing Ida John’s dress.
Diana’s husband Tristan de Vere Cole, whom she married in 1962, was the illegitimate son of Augustus John. His mother Mavis Cole, first met John in 1928 at the Café Royal, when she agreed to model for him. She married Horace de Vere Cole, in 1931 and a year later became Augustus John’s mistress. Tristan Cole, from the age of 18 months, was brought up in the John household at Fryern Court, Fordingbridge.
Diana began as a student at Brighton School of Art in 1957. Michael helped her with etching, and became her mentor and lifelong friend and correspondent.
Diana’s family had moved to Ditchling to live in Brangwyn’s former house, The Jointure. Her father, Crosby Crook, had been a printer who worked with Brangwyn on his posters. After Brangwyn’s death he ran an inn sign painting business and in the summer of 1958 he employed Michael Blaker in this business. Michael slept in a gypsy caravan which had been built by Dunstan Pruden, a silversmith in the Guild of St Joseph & St Dominic.
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