Chapter 10 of 12: 20th Century: Survival & Key Practitioners

The Art of the Intimate Scale

Chapter 10: 20th Century: Survival & Key Practitioners

Modernism's Challenge, Wartime Continuity & the Miniature's Quiet Persistence

Chapter 10 of 12

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The 20th century presented the portrait miniature with a challenge more profound than photography: the entire intellectual framework of modernism, which held that traditional representational art in historical media was not merely unfashionable but ideologically suspect. The miniature survived — but the story of how and why is one of the most instructive in the history of any art form.

Modernism and the Miniature: An Uneasy Relationship

The Modernist revolution in art — from Impressionism through Cubism to Abstract Expressionism — was fundamentally hostile to the values that defined the portrait miniature: likeness, technical conservatism, small scale, personal intimacy. The critical establishment of the early 20th century largely ignored or actively denigrated miniature painting as a relic.

The RMS responded partly by defensiveness — maintaining its standards as a conscious act of cultural resistance — and partly by accommodating a degree of stylistic modernity within its exhibitions. The tension between these two impulses — preservation and adaptation — defined the Society's 20th-century trajectory.

The Interwar Period: A Quiet Flowering

Despite critical neglect, the interwar period (1919–1939) produced some of the finest British miniature painting of the century. Artists working in this period include:

Winifred Cecile Dongworth (1893–1975), one of the most technically accomplished miniaturists of the century, whose portraits combined the luminous ivory tradition of the 18th century with a sensitive modernity of expression. She exhibited extensively at the RMS and was elected a Fellow.

Lilian Margaret Jameson (active 1920s–1950s), whose work demonstrated that the miniature tradition could absorb influences from contemporary art without losing its essential character.

The Second World War and the Portable Art

The Second World War had a complex relationship with portrait miniature painting. On one hand, the war devastated the art market and disrupted exhibition schedules. On the other, it demonstrated with painful clarity the human need for portable personal images — soldiers carrying miniatures of loved ones into combat, families keeping portrait tokens of absent members.

The RMS maintained its exhibition programme with remarkable persistence through the war years — a continuity that, in retrospect, was a significant act of cultural defiance.

Postwar: Survival Against Abstraction

The postwar decades were arguably the most difficult period for the miniature tradition. The dominance of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s and Pop Art in the 1960s created a critical climate in which representational painting on any scale was regarded as retrogressive. The miniature, with its associations of courtly elegance and Victorian sentiment, was doubly marginalised.

The artists who continued to work in the tradition during this period did so against considerable cultural headwinds. Their persistence — technical, professional, institutional — was what kept the tradition alive until the revival that began in the 1980s.

The Late 20th-Century Revival

From the late 1970s onwards, a broader cultural shift — the questioning of modernist orthodoxies, the emergence of postmodernism, the renewed interest in craft and material culture — created a more hospitable environment for the portrait miniature. By the 1990s, the RMS annual exhibition was attracting both a broader range of practitioners and increased critical and public attention.

This revival was international: miniature societies flourished in Australia, Canada, the United States, and across Europe. The establishment of international competitions and exchanges created a global miniature painting community for the first time.

The Victoria & Albert Museum, London — home of the finest collection of portrait miniatures in the world. V&A Miniatures Collection

The V&A Collection: Your Essential ResourceThe Victoria & Albert Museum holds the most important collection of portrait miniatures in the world — over 600 works, spanning from Holbein to the present day, searchable online at collections.vam.ac.uk. As RMS President, this collection is your primary scholarly reference. Know it well.

Key Terms for Chapter 10

Modernism Abstract Expressionism Winifred Dongworth Cultural resistance Postmodernism International miniature revival

������ Self-Test: Chapter 10

1. What intellectual framework made Modernism hostile to portrait miniature painting?
2. Name one significant British miniaturist of the interwar period and describe their significance.
3. How did the Second World War demonstrate the enduring human need for the portrait miniature?
4. Which postwar art movements were most hostile to the miniature tradition, and why?
5. What cultural shift from the late 1970s onwards created a more hospitable environment for the miniature?

������ The President's Edge

The 20th-century survival narrative — the miniature persisting through the most hostile critical climate in its history, sustained by a community of practitioners against considerable odds — is one of the most compelling arguments for the form's essential vitality. "This is an art form that survived the 20th century intact" is a statement worth making publicly and often.

The Art of the Intimate Scale · Chapter 10 of 12 · Curated for Tom Mulliner, President, Royal Miniature Society