Gwendoline Mary John [commonly known as Gwen John] was born in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales on 22 June 1876. She studied under Frederick Brown and Henry Tonks and at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London from 1894 to 1897; and under James MacNeill Whistler at the Académie Carmen in Paris from 1898. She went back to London in 1899 and made her debut as an exhibiting artist with her painting A Portrait of an Artist at the New English Art Club in London the following year. She subsequently exhibited at the NEAC on a number of occasions until 1925. She also exhibited at the Women's International Art Club, the Pastel Society in London. In 1903 she exhibited with her brother Augustus John (1878-1961) at the Carfax Gallery but it was not until 1926 that she held her first and only solo exhibition, at the Chenil Gallery in London.

In 1904 she returned to France and lived in Montparnasse. She began working as an artists' model and before long started posing for Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). She had a passionate infatuation with him which lasted for several years. In 1905 she attended classes at the Académie Colarossi in Paris.

In 1907 she moved to 87 rue du Cherche Mide. Two years later she moved to 6 rue de l'Ouest, Montparnasse. In 1911 she moved again, to 29 rue Terre Neuve, Meudon, in order to be near Rodin's house and was to live there for the rest of her life. She retained 6 rue de l'Ouest as her studio.

In 1910 she acquired a patron, John Quinn, an American art collector who, over the next twelve years, purchased the majority of her paintings and drawings. This gave her both the confidence and the financial independence to enable her to give up modelling and concentrate on her art, which appears to have been neglected during her affair with Rodin.

In 1913 she was received into the Roman Catholic Church and began a series of portraits of Mère Marie Poussepin (1653–1744), the founder of the Dominican Sisters of Charity at Meudon. From this period onwards, John became something of a recluse, however, in 1919 she exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne in Paris and then exhibited regularly there until the mid-1920s. During the 1920s she also exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

She died in Dieppe, France on 18 September 1939.

_{Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)}