Smith Art Gallery & Museum | Details | Fire screen embroidery

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Actions Displays	Fire screen embroidery Remove from selection Add to selection Reproduction Download mediaDownload as zip file Object number21283 TitleFire screen embroidery Creator Marion Wallace Dunlop DescriptionThis delicate embroidery was originally made as a firescreen by Marion Wallace Dunlop in around 1905. An art nouveau design with a glorious colour palette, it shows a woman in flowing robes encircled by swooping swallows, surrounded by bluebells and other spring flowers. Marion Wallace Dunlop (1864-1942) was a famous suffragette activist and artist who trained at the Slade School of Art in London. She was born in Inverness and although she lived in England for most of her life, she was proud of her family’s Scottish roots – they believed they were related to William Wallace himself. Perhaps she was inspired by her famous ancestor to fight for votes for women? Her entry in the Women’s Who’s Who of 1913 describes her as an “Artist and Illustrator, militant propagandist.” Wallace Dunlop was an active member of the Women’s Social and Political Union. She was arrested on several occasions, and finally sent to prison in 1909 for stencilling a passage from the Bill of Rights on a wall of the House of Commons. What happened next changed the nature of protest forever. Unsatisfied with her treatment as a political prisoner, Wallace Dunlop refused to eat – the first ever hunger strike. After 91 hours she was released because of concerns for her health. Her actions inspired not just a new tactic for the suffragette movement, but for political prisoners from that time onwards, all over the world. Object nameembroidery

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Download mediaDownload as zip file

Object number21283

TitleFire screen embroidery

DescriptionThis delicate embroidery was originally made as a firescreen by Marion Wallace Dunlop in around 1905. An art nouveau design with a glorious colour palette, it shows a woman in flowing robes encircled by swooping swallows, surrounded by bluebells and other spring flowers. Marion Wallace Dunlop (1864-1942) was a famous suffragette activist and artist who trained at the Slade School of Art in London. She was born in Inverness and although she lived in England for most of her life, she was proud of her family’s Scottish roots – they believed they were related to William Wallace himself. Perhaps she was inspired by her famous ancestor to fight for votes for women? Her entry in the Women’s Who’s Who of 1913 describes her as an “Artist and Illustrator, militant propagandist.” Wallace Dunlop was an active member of the Women’s Social and Political Union. She was arrested on several occasions, and finally sent to prison in 1909 for stencilling a passage from the Bill of Rights on a wall of the House of Commons. What happened next changed the nature of protest forever. Unsatisfied with her treatment as a political prisoner, Wallace Dunlop refused to eat – the first ever hunger strike. After 91 hours she was released because of concerns for her health. Her actions inspired not just a new tactic for the suffragette movement, but for political prisoners from that time onwards, all over the world.

Object nameembroidery