Details

Name

Stansmore Richmond Leslie Dean

Brief Biography

1866 - 1944, Scottish

Occupation

Artist

Description

Glasgow Girl Stansmore Richmond Leslie Dean, known to friends as ‘Stannie/Stanny’, was born in Glasgow on 3 June 1866. She was the youngest of six surviving children of Jean Leslie and Alexander Davidson Dean, an Aberdeen artist and master engraver, co-founder of the printing firm Gilmour & Dean. They lived in Balgray House, Kelvinside – designed by Glasgow architect William Leiper in 1873. She studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1883 to 1889 where she became the first woman to win the Haldane Travelling Scholarship in 1890. This enabled her to study in Paris at the Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi. On her return to Glasgow she took a studio at 180 West Regent Street, but spent the summer months with fellow artists in the south of France, Brittany and Holland. In a male-dominated world, Dean possibly found her unusual first name ‘Stansmore’ to her advantage; when she first exhibited it was assumed that she was a man. In 1898 and 1901 Dean exhibited in London with the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers of which American artist James McNeill Whistler was President. She also exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts from 1894 and at the Paris Salon.

In 1902 she married Glasgow Boy Robert Macaulay Stevenson (1854–1952). His first wife Jean Shields of Irvine had died in childbirth several years earlier. Dean’s life changed dramatically, becoming step-mother to his daughter Jean and having to manage Robinsfield, their large house by Bardowie Loch in Milngavie, while continuing to paint and exhibit. In 1905-6 she exhibited two paintings in America and Canada, one of which was her 1905 portrait of Scottish writer Neil Munro which was acquired by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, the first painting purchased by them from a living artist.

Dean was a member of the pioneering Glasgow Society of Lady Artists. She was convenor of its decoration committee in 1908 when alterations to the headquarters at 5 Blythswood Square were being made but she resigned when Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who had started the work, was relieved of the commission. Artist members raised a petition to have her reinstated but Dean and Stevenson were preparing to move to France and rent out Robinsfield, as they were experiencing financial difficulties.

From 1910 until 1926 Dean, Stevenson and Jean lived in Montreuil-sur-Mer in northern France. During World War I they helped look after the Scottish war wounded for which Dean was offered an OBE but declined it. She wasn’t able to find time to paint until they returned to Robinsfield in 1927. However, experiencing financial difficulties again, in 1932 they moved to Kirkcudbright where they stayed in a succession of hotels. Dean was able to work in Jessie M. King’s Green Gate Close studios but her sight was deteriorating. At the time of her death in a hospital in Castle Douglas in 1944 she was blind.