It was the roaring 20s, women’s rights were surging and there was a group of maverick females who ruled London’s West End. They were the Queens of Bohemia, whose morality meant being true to themselves and fighting for their rights and the freedom to live the way they wanted. They included the “Queen of Clubs” Kate Meyrick to the taboo-breaking “Tiger Woman”, Betty May. There was also the original Chelsea Girl, Viva King, and ground-breaking artist Nina Hamnett. They were just a few of the femme fatales who paved the way for the independent women of the future. Now a new book, using previously unpublished interviews and memoirs, gives us a taste of their exotic and intoxicating world, which was also tinged with sadness and despair.
Nina had always been a rebel. When her father refused to pay her art school fees, she moved back from Paris and took the most unladylike job of organising models for a life-drawing class. She moved to London’s Fitzrovia to be close to the leading lights of the capital’s art world. Nina posed nude – and also painted naked men, who returned the favour. It was not considered acceptable for a female artist to exhibit male nudes and no respectable gallery would show them. So Nina worked at Fry’s Omega Workshop on Fitzroy Square, painting and decorating shoddy furniture and art a few days a week to make ends meet. The centre of this bohemian community was the Fitzroy Tavern. Everybody knew the Fitzroy as the famous haunt of artists and writers. Here the Queen of Bohemia, Nina, and her friend the painter Augustus John could be seen holding court and knocking back double brandies with the model Betty May. But while Nina and Augustus were promiscuous, she fell victim to the age-old problem of one rule for men, another for women. While his philandering was seen as male prowess, hers was considered little more than prostitution.
Author Darren Coffield says: “Men could break social protocols, have sex outside of marriage and live a dissolute lifestyle, but women lacked legal rights to behave independently. “Nina’s lover, Roger Fry, complained about her promiscuity, declaring, ‘You are the most fascinating, exciting, tantalising, elusive, capricious, impulsive, beautiful, exasperating creature in the world.'” Artists’ models were the pop stars of the day, with the mix of sexual allure and free-spirited lifestyles captivating people’s imaginations. Betty was one of the most avant-garde. She had grown up in an East End slum with her mum and slept on rags before being sent to live with her dad in a brothel.
Writer INSIGHT The Celine Hispeche says: “She was so beautiful and wild, the rock ‘n’ roll figure of her day, who ran away from home to go clubbing. “Her life inspired David Garnett’s novel, Dope Darling: A story of Cocaine.” No flashy party was complete without Betty – whether it be dancing, gambling or a secret doping orgy, she and her raging cocaine habit would be there. Fitzroy Tavern landlady Sally Fiber recalled: “Betty was nicknamed Tiger Woman, on account of her wildcat temperament. She was tiny but her angelic appearance belied her violent nature. Those green eyes could blaze with savage ferocity and woe betide the victim of her wrath. She dressed like a gypsy and delighted in shocking people. Her favourite cabaret act at the Fitzroy was to squat on all fours and drink from a saucer, to the hilarity of all. Men were obsessed with her ‘pantherine’ movements.
“One such slave was the young Oxford graduate Raoul Loveday, who Betty married. He died tragically in bizarre circumstances after being initiated into occultism. Interest in the occult was another ingredient in the spicy bohemian Fitzrovian stew.” Viva King was Nina’s protege. They shared the same plucky spirit and became fast friends. Viva, too, had been an art student and for those bohemian women who did not want to starve for their art, a second and rather less risky role was that of salon hostess – creating a social space where artists and intellectuals could meet. When Viva started her salon, women had just been given the right to vote but the social freedoms won by the suffragettes were not matched by equality in the arts.
Remaining unmarried did not solve the problem either, as they would be expected to devote themselves to their parents and become an “old maid”. Even hardened hedonists such as Viva had nightmares about growing old and lonely. She once wrote: “I would suddenly sit up in bed at the thought, ‘I am 31. Then, it will be 32. Then 33. I am not married
