Cathleen Mann

Cathleen Mann was a British painter and costume designer. Mann was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1896, the daughter of portraitists Harrington Mann and Florence Sabine Pasley. Under the guidance of her father Mann painted from a very early age before enrolling at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.

The eruption of WWII cut short Mann’s further studies in Paris and during the war period she served in an ambulance unit in London. Nevertheless, she continued her artistic practice and served as an Official War Artist, expressively capturing eminent military figures. As well as being reproduced in magazines such as Time, these paintings were exhibited in London and then toured America.

By 1924 two portraits by Mann had been accepted by the Royal Academy with whom she regularly exhibited from 1930 onwards. At this time Mann began to design and create costumes for British film, including the Iron Duke (1935) and Things to Come (1937). A variety of her drawings are now exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum, her costume-work forming a large part of her legacy.

The later years of Mann’s career marked a definite move away from the striking portraits that had made her name. From 1953 onwards Mann began to produce landscapes of increasing abstractionism, as well as nude drawings and sculptures. Mann died in 1959 and her work remains in a number of national collections.

During her life Mann’s work was displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Musée du Luxembourg, and the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. Two of her portraits remain hanging in the National Portrait Gallery: Sir Matthew Smith and Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (both oil on canvas, 1952). Mann eventually became a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.