A robust association copy of the British radio modernist’s imaginary biography of Charlotte Castleton, a successful fin de siècle artist and first woman R.A., aptly inscribed to another important British artist, the photographer, Olive Edis: “I offer you this work in a wood full of bluebells, and we will come back, when you have read it, by the Circular Route. Please have some nice warm friendly memories of me [...],” wrote Sieveking, signing off with “My love”.
The pioneering BBC producer and author, Lance Sieveking (1896-1972) sat for Edis (1876–1955) in the 1920s; indeed, she photographed many influential figures across her career, including Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1909), Thomas Hardy (1914), David Lloyd George (1917), Nancy Astor (1920) and Emmeline Pankhurst (1920). In 1912 (the year of Sievking’s imaginary date of inscription) Edis became “one of the first women to use autochromes, responding sensitively to their rich colours and inventing her own viewer” (ODNB). The following year she won a Royal Photographic Society medal with her autochrome ‘Portrait Study’ and became a fellow of the Society in 1914. She was appointed an official war artist in 1918, photographing British Women’s Services and the battlefields of France and Flanders for the Imperial War Museum.
Olive Edis’ photographs are held by the National Portrait Gallery (including her portrait of Sieveking), IWM and Cromer Museum; Lance Sieveking’s papers are held by the Lilly Library, Indiana University.
Natalie Sieveking (formerly Ackenhausen and Denny; from 1939, Bevan), the artist and ceramicist, was Sieveking’s second wife.