Born: 20 December 1831, United Kingdom
Died: 3 April 1900
Country most active: United Kingdom, France
Also known as: NA
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Bridget Hourican. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Trevor, Helen Mabel (1831–1900), artist, was born 20 December 1831 in Lisnagead House, Loughbrickland, Co. Down, eldest daughter of Edward Hill Trevor, Esq.; her mother’s name is not known. She began drawing from an early age and her father encouraged her by fitting out a studio in their house. Her first drawings were of animals and in 1856 she sent three paintings of a dog, a kitten, and hounds of the Newry Hunt to the RHA, as well as a portrait. Three years later she sent two more paintings of dogs, but did not begin to study art seriously until the late 1870s, when she spent four years at the RA in London. She never again lived in Ireland, but the income from the Loughbrickland estate supported her travels and studies over the next two decades. About 1880 she went to Paris and studied with Jean-Jacques Henner (1829–1905), Luc Olivier Merson (1846–1920), and Carolus-Duran (1838–1917). In 1881 and 1882 she went with her sister Rose on extended tours of Brittany and Normandy, and in 1881 sent a painting, ‘Breton boys en retenue’ to the RA. ‘Two Breton girls’ (private ownership) is probably also from this period. It is an endearing, if sentimental depiction. ‘A Breton widow’ (signed 1883, exhibited RHA 1889) shows the beginning of the realism associated with Trevor’s later works. In 1883 she was in Concarneau, where she may have encountered the influential realist Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–84). That year she went with her sister to Italy, where they remained for six years, travelling constantly and studying the Old Masters. During these years she continued to exhibit in the RHA, showing a landscape, ‘The hills of Perugia’ and a genre painting, ‘Venetian beadstringers’, both in 1888.
Returning to Paris in 1889, she took an unfurnished flat in 5 Rue Soufflot and reentered the atelier Carolus-Duran, where Henner remarked, after seeing a sketch of her light effects, ‘maintenant vous êtes dans la voie de ces imbéciles’ (Trevor, Ramblings, 109) meaning the impressionists, who had, however, little effect on her style. Although she continued to visit Brittany, she was based in Paris until her death, and between 1889 and 1899 she showed at the Paris Salon from various addresses including 1 Rue Cervantes, 159 Boulevard Saint-Germain, and 53 Rue du Cherche-Midi. During this period she complained that ‘the sweeping reduction of our rents in Ireland affects us gravely’ (ibid., 104–5), but was largely cheerful about her reduced circumstances. In 1898 she received honourable mention for her ‘Breton interior’ (NGI). Between 1889 and 1897 she sent fourteen pictures to the RHA and also showed in the RA. ‘La mère du marin’ (1892; exhibited RHA 1896; bequeathed NGI 1900) is a good example of her late period. The firm draughtsmanship and hunched figure recall Bastien-Lepage and Millet, while the wrinkled face and what Julian Campbell has called ‘the dreary oppressive quality’ (Campbell, 179) are reminiscent of ‘Old woman gathering leaves’ (1887) by Frank O’Meara, who was also a student of Duran.
Although rather deaf, Trevor remained in excellent health until her sudden death, from a heart attack, in her studio in Rue du Cherche Midi on 3 April 1900. She bequeathed two paintings to the NGI, and her sister presented a third, a self-portrait. The Ulster Museum purchased ‘The young Eve’ (1882) in 1959. Trevor’s letters to her friend E. Halse were published in 1901 as Ramblings of an artist.