In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 1894
- Died
- 1955
- Birthplace
- Clonskeagh, County Dublin
- Country
- Ireland
- Nationality
- Not independently established
- Known for
- Modernist painting, My Four Green Fields and Eton College Chapel’s east window
Why this life matters
Her work connects modernist composition with the practical and architectural demands of stained glass, without making the two media interchangeable.
Timeline
Key moments
Modernist exhibition
Hone and Jellett presented new approaches in Dublin.
An Túr Gloine
Hone entered a professional stained-glass network.
Independent studio
She established her Rathfarnham studio.
Eton east window
A major installed commission followed chapel wartime damage.
Painting and a sustained friendship
Eva Sydney Hone, known as Evie, was born in County Dublin in 1894. Childhood polio affected her mobility, but art education and travel became continuing parts of her life. She studied in London before working in France alongside Mainie Jellett. Their encounters with cubist teaching, including Albert Gleizes, helped bring new ideas about shape and colour into Irish painting. The friendship was a working relationship as well as an important personal connection.
Sources for this section: [1]
Modernism in more than one medium
Hone and Jellett exhibited abstract and cubist work in Dublin in 1924, provoking sharply divided responses. Hone continued painting while moving towards stained-glass design. Her earlier engagement with composition remained relevant, but glass required another set of skills and conditions: an image had to exist through pieces, joins, a window opening and transmitted light. A painting background could offer resources without eliminating the need to learn the new medium.
Working within and beyond a studio
In 1933 Hone joined An Túr Gloine, the cooperative associated with Sarah Purser. The studio network offered a professional setting for stained-glass commissions in Ireland and abroad. My Four Green Fields became one of her most widely recognised designs. In 1944 she established her own studio at Rathfarnham. Religious commissions and journeys to Italy accompanied this later phase, while the record of drawings and cartoons reveals the preparatory work behind finished windows. The National Gallery’s holdings include drawings, paintings and glass, making the transition visible through more than a single installed masterpiece. Preparatory material retains decisions that an account limited to famous windows would otherwise miss.
The Eton commission and a later legacy
Eton College Chapel’s east window was installed in 1952, following the destruction of most chapel glazing by a 1940 bomb. Hone’s work placed the Crucifixion above the Last Supper within a strongly coloured composition. It was distinct from the chapel’s later side windows by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens. Hone died in 1955. Her career now offers a particularly useful connection between modernist painting, a cooperative craft setting and an architectural public work. The surviving cartoon and the installed glass make different stages of that connection available to study, rather than allowing the final window to stand for the whole labour of making it.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Evie Hone
- Was Evie Hone originally a painter?
- Yes. Her modernist painting career preceded her major stained-glass work.
- Did she design every modern window in Eton Chapel?
- No. The east window is hers; Eton attributes the flanking designs to John Piper and their glass execution to Patrick Reyntiens.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Mainie Jellett
Read the career of Hone’s documented friend and fellow modernist student.
- Wilhelmina Geddes
Compare a different stained-glass career within the An Túr Gloine network.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. Dictionary of Irish BiographyHone, Eva Sydney
- 2. National Gallery of IrelandMainie Jellett and Evie Hone exhibition
- 3. Eton CollegeChapel windows
- 4. National Gallery of IrelandEvie Hone collection records
The collection’s cartoon date is not used to redate the installed window. The list records a preparatory object; the guide does not claim examination of its original sheet.
- 5. The Stained Glass MuseumGlossary of stained-glass terms