Ida Nettleship

Ida Margaret Nettleship (24 January 1877 – 14 March 1907) was an English artist. She is best known as the wife of artist Augustus John from 1901 until her death from puerperal fever in 1907.

Nettleship was born in Hampstead, the eldest of the three daughters of animal painter John Trivett Nettleship and his wife Adaline, better known as Ada Nettleship, dressmaker and daughter of otologist James Hinton.

She became a student at the Slade School of Art in 1892, where she studied until 1898 under Fred Brown, Henry Tonks and Wilson Steer. She befriended Gwen Salmond, Edna Waugh (who married William Clarke Hall in 1898 to become Edna Clarke Hall) and Gwen John, and Bessie and Dorothy Salaman. She became engaged to their brother Clement Salaman but broke it off in 1897 and travelled to Italy. Later, she met Gwen's brother Augustus John. She travelled to Paris in 1898 with Gwen Salmond and studied under James Whistler at the Académie Carmen.

Nettleship married John on 24 January 1901. They honeymooned in Swanage. They initially took a flat in Fitzroy Street in London, but John was soon appointed a temporary professor at the school of art at University College, Liverpool. They remained in Liverpool for 18 months, and the first of their five sons, David Anthony Nettleship, was born in January 1902. He later became a musician and postman. A portrait of Ida by John from around 1901, while she was in her first pregnancy, is held by the National Museum of Wales.

The family moved to London in 1903, where John co-founded Chelsea Art School with William Orpen. Their second son Caspar John was born in London in March 1903. He became an officer in the Royal Navy, rising to become an Admiral of the Fleet, and served as First Sea Lord from 1960 to 1963.

Her husband first met Dorothy McNeill later in 1903. Better known as Dorelia, she had also studied at the Slade, where she befriended Gwen John. She became Augustus John's model and mistress. Between 1903 and 1907, John lived with his wife Ida and his mistress Dorelia in a ménage à trois, first at Matching Green in Essex and from 1905 in Paris. The first of John's four children with Dorelia, Pyramus, was born in 1905 but he died of meningitis in 1912. Pyramus was quickly followed by Romilly (born 1906) who became a poet, and later by two girls, Elizabeth Ann (known as Poppet, born 1912), and Vivien (1915-1994) was also a painter.

Meanwhile, Ida had three further sons with John: Robin (born 1904 in Essex) became a linguist; Edwin (born 1905 in Paris) became a boxer and watercolourist; and Henry (born 1907 in Paris, died 1935) was a religious philosopher.

Ida died from puerperal fever in Paris in 1907 after the birth of her fifth son, Henry. She was cremated at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

John remained with Dorelia after Nettleship's death, and they brought up the children.

References

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