Georgiana Burne-Jones 1840 – 1920
Georgiana Burne-Jones (also Lady Burne-Jones, née Macdonald) (known as Georgie)
Painter and engraver.
21 July 1840 – 2 February 1920
Edward Burne-Jones, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Education
Lacked a formal education.
In 1850s studied at the Government School of Design in Kensington and 1856 with Ford Madox Brown.
Some Key Achievements and Interests
1861 Became involved in Morris & Co contributing as a tile-painter and embroiderer.
1862 Accompanied Ruskin on a study trip with her husband, Edward, to Italy.
Became involved in the management of the South London Art Gallery which had been set up to provide arts education for the working classes in South London.
1895 Elected to parish council in Rottingdean, Sussex. Supported women’s issues and those of the working classes.
1898 On the death of her Edward, worked on a biography Memorials of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Published in 2 vols in 1904.
Issues
After their marriage Edward excluded her from his studio and artistic life.
Stopped tile painting on the birth of her son.
Lost her second child while ill with scarlet fever.
She refused to end her marriage when her husband started a relationship with Maria Zambaco.
Female networks
Members of the Pre Raphaelite Sisterhood and Morris & Co women networks including Elizabeth Siddal, George Eliot, Gertrude Maclaren, Jane Morris, Mabel Beardsley, Rebecca Solomon, Rosalind Howard.
Connection to Bloomsbury
1860 Lived in Russell Place, Bloomsbury.
1861-1865 Lived 62 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury.
Further reading
Burne-Jones, Georgiana, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1904 (2 vols)
‘Georgiana Burne-Jones’ in Jan Marsh (ed.), Pre-Raphaelite Sisters, (London, 2019), pp. 124-145.