Nina Hamnett
Nina Hamnett was born in Tenby, although she didn't meet Augustus John or his sister Gwen until they were all studying in London. In London she met Aleister Crowley, he commissioned a mural from her for his house in Victoria Street. Hamnett became a talented Modernist artist. She was Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's model and lover and she posed for a number of his sculptures. In Paris she was friends with Brancusi, Picasso, Diaghilev, Cocteau, André Gide and was a lover of Modigliani, or did she take him as a lover? Her relationships with these artists was one of equality. It is possible that if she had not chosen to investigate sex, alcohol and raconteurship as media instead of canvas and paint she might have an even greater reputation as an artist today. She also knew and modelled for Walter Sickert, another artist with a high opinion of her talent. She worked at Omega Workshops for Roger Fry and took him as a lover, she also helped him in the development of his craft as a painter. After the First World War Hamnett returned to Paris, where she was very probably the best known female artist. Aleister Crowley was also in Paris, he was as attracted to the Bohemian way of life as these Bohemians were to his. In 1926 she returned to London and fully dedicated herself to alcohol and story telling. In 1932 Hamnett published her first book, "The Laughing Torso'. Aleister Crowley sued her for libel over her reference to his practice of black magic. His case was not proven and he was bankrupted. Crowley's bitterness towards Hamnett led some to believe he had cursed her, bringing about Hamnett's death, even though it occurred nine years after his own. In 1956 she fell forty feet from a window and was impaled on the railings below. In 1955 Hamnett had published 'Is She a Lady?' a sequential autobiographical account.
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