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Hazel King-Farlow was born in New York in April 1903, and was the younger sister of influential gallery proprietor Peggy Guggenheim.

Slapton Sands, Devon

Slapton Sands, Devon

Hazel King-Farlow (1903–1995)

Ferens Art Gallery

Hazel was the only artist of the three Guggenheim sisters; she began painting in her teens and was prolific all her life. She shared a love of art with Peggy and they both chose to live a more bohemian life than their upbringing allowed, rebelling and moved to Europe in the 1920s, whilst their oldest sister Benita remained closer to the family fold.

This Is Not Athens but Hammersmith

This Is Not Athens but Hammersmith 1965

Hazel King-Farlow (1903–1995)

Lakeland Arts

Hazel and Peggy’s relationship was uncomfortable: Peggy regarded herself as the family’s ugly duckling, making her envious of Hazel’s perceived charms.

Dahlias

Dahlias

Hazel King-Farlow (1903–1995)

The Hepworth Wakefield

She refused to exhibit Hazel’s painting, apart from one notable occasion, the 1943 ‘Exhibition by 31 Women’, at Peggy’s New York gallery. This exhibition was the first to give group recognition to modern women artists. Hazel’s work was finally exhibited in 1998 at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, but this was after Peggy had died in 1979.

Powder Mill House

Powder Mill House 1938

Hazel King-Farlow (1903–1995)

Manchester Art Gallery

Despite being from a very wealthy family Hazel did not lead a particularly happy life; she suffered a series of tragedies. When she was only eight years of age her father, returning from Europe for her birthday, went down on the Titanic.

Swiss Lake

Swiss Lake

Hazel King-Farlow (1903–1995)

The Hepworth Wakefield

At only 19 she married (the first of six) but it failed immediately and Hazel escaped to Paris. She then attended the Sorbonne, married again and had two sons. Tragically, during a family visit to New York both of her baby sons fell to their death from a skyscraper, a horror which the family swept under the carpet. Things did not improve, when her sister Benita died in childbirth and later Hazel’s best beloved fourth husband would die in the war.

The Black Jug (Cyclamen)

The Black Jug (Cyclamen)

Hazel King-Farlow (1903–1995)

Leeds Museums and Galleries

In 1931 Hazel’s third marriage, to Denys King-Farlow, allowed her to settle in Sussex where she had two more children. For a time Peggy lived nearby with her family and both sisters began to take art very seriously.

The Harbour

The Harbour 1936–1939

Hazel King-Farlow (1903–1995)

Manchester Art Gallery

Hazel had her first solo exhibition in London in April 1937. She sold or donated work to public art galleries and her paintings can be seen in Wakefield, Manchester and Leeds. Meanwhile Peggy opened her first gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, in London. Hazel also ran a small gallery in the States much later, in the 1960s.

Unicorn

Unicorn 1936–1937

Hazel King-Farlow (1903–1995)

Manchester Art Gallery

Due to the war, Hazel returned to the USA in 1939, and Peggy in 1941. Peggy married surrealist Max Ernst, while Hazel fell for and married portrait painter and USAAF pilot Chick McKinley, they would paint side by side in a garden studio. Sadly, he died in a plane crash. Hazel had three more brief marriages, but continued using the surname McKinley, after her artist-airman.

The Old Mill-House

The Old Mill-House

Hazel King-Farlow (1903–1995)

Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives

Like her sister, Hazel collected contemporary art, but unlike Peggy she donated it to public institutions. Her most important gift was Kandinsky’s Cossacks, to the Tate Gallery in 1938.

Cossacks (Cosaques)

Cossacks (Cosaques) 1910–11

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)

Tate

Eventually her collection was depleted by this generosity. She died in 1995, and her son and daughter scattered her ashes in the Mississippi.

Sue Gilbert, writer and photographer