This Pre-Raphaelite inspired portrait by William Smedley Aston was first exhibited under the title Pensive Moments as part of the 1900 Linked Ring Salon. (1.)

Thanks to Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian historian and author Kirsty Stonell Walker (2.) for identifying the subject of this photograph as Gwendoline Kate Lewis (Pike) (1882-1929).

A noted textile designer, maker and embroiderer, Gwendoline was the older sister of William Smedley-Aston’s wife Irene Ida Smedley-Aston. (1884-1961) 

In her paper: ‘Letting her needle play over the garments’: Gwendoline Lewis at the Lyceum Club On 13 November 1909, (3.) recent scholarship by Victoria Osborne, Curator of Fine Art at Birmingham Museums Trust, presents a fascinating look into the relationship between Gwen Pike and Constance Smedley, a first cousin to the photographer of this portrait, and founder of the International Association of Lyceum Clubs. An excerpt:

“Established to foster social and professional exchange between women, the Lyceum had staged a series of exhibitions promoting fine and decorative art by female makers at its clubhouse on Piccadilly since 1905. Its latest exhibitors were closely connected: born in Birmingham and related by marriage, Lewis and Smedley had been contemporaries at Birmingham Central School of Art and moved in the same artistic and social circles in the city. Under her married name of Gwen Pike, Lewis would become a significant figure in the British revival of block-printed textiles in the 1920s; however, her earlier work is less often discussed. This short paper focuses on embroidered textiles and archival material held in private collections, including pieces on long-term loan to Birmingham Museums, to explore the significance of the Lyceum Club exhibition in Lewis’s career before the First World War. It also touches on some of the ways in which her early connections within the artistic networks of turn-of-the-century Birmingham helped to shape her practice.”

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The following short biography of the artist appeared in the May, 1900 issue of The Photogram:

W. Smedley Aston took his first negative in 1892, from which, by the way, he afterwards obtained an award, and after a single course of view-taking of the summer holiday type, decided to set his face against indiscriminately exposing dozens of plates, and to devote more care and thought to fewer subjects.

The sequel is that to-day Mr. Aston is in the front rank of pictorial workers, a member of the Linked Ring, the possessor of over a hundred awards. At the recent Birmingham Exhibition he won outright the Challenge Cup for the best work in the last three Exhibitions. This has been done in the comparatively few opportunities Mr. Aston has for using the camera, for his professional duties in the firm of W. S. Aston & Co., Accountants, and certain public work in several direction, leave him very little leisure. But his motto is to expose little and to think much, and while he indulges no pessimistic ideas of present day pictorial photography, there are few who think less of what has been done, and more of what may be done, than he.

Formerly Mr. Aston won his success chiefly in landscape, but has latterly turned his attention to figure and portrait studies. Mr. Beerbohn Tree’s famous King John Souvenir was the work of Mr. Aston who undertook it simply for the opportunities which the occasion offered.

Past issues of Photograms of the Year contain some of his most charming work. (4.)

William Smedley-Aston: 1868-1941

William Smedley-Aston was with his wife Irene a Victorian Pre-Raphaelite Arts & Crafts photographer and member of the Birmingham Group of artists and the Linked Ring Brotherhood. He was also known as W. S. Aston or W. Smedley.

He was also instrumental in encouraging and financing early moving films or “Biographs” as they were initially known, through his firm the British Biograph Co.

He was married to Irene Smedley-Aston, who featured in many photographs, paintings, and drawings of the Arts and Crafts movement because the couple were friends with other members of the Birmingham School of Art and the Birmingham Group (artists) such as Joseph Southall, Arthur Gaskin and Maxwell Armfield. Armfield’s wife Constance Smedley was William’s first cousin. Constance was a successful writer who like her husband had attended Birmingham School of Art. –Wikipedia (2024) continues

The Linked Ring

W. Smedley Aston was elected a member in December, 1899. He lacked a Pseudonym and was severed from the Linked Ring on 20 May, 1908. (5.)

1. Gwendoline is listed as #62 in a Catalogue of Photographs by Mr. W. Smedley Aston, of Birmingham. This was published in The Photographic Journal (RPS) of May 31, 1902. The artist provided this Opening Address as part of an exhibition of his work opened on May 20th at the Royal Photographic Society rooms in London. His lengthy speech begins on p. 120-138. Aston’s photograph “The Embroidery” also features similar background wallpaper and may feature this same model.
2. See: Constant Craving: an August, 2020 blog post on French photographer Constant Puyo on Kirsty Stonell Walker’s website The Kissed Mouth. 
3. Victoria Osborne’s paper on YouTube begins at 26:35, part of the 7th event of the 19th Century Dress and Textiles Reframed network from June, 2021.
4. W. Smedley Aston: biography in The Photogram, Vol. 7: Dawbarn & Ward, Ltd., London: May, 1900,  p. 157
5. The Linked Ring:The Secession in Photography 1892-1910, Margaret Harker: 1979, p. 179