Hazel Lavery

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Lady Hazel Lavery (1880 - 1935) was an artist and the second wife of the celebrated portrait artist Sir John Lavery.

[edit] Family

Born Hazel Martyn in Chicago, Lady Lavery was the daughter of an industrialist Edward Jenner Martyn of Irish extraction.

[edit] Adult life

Hazel Lavery was a keen Irish nationalist and a close friend of many of the Irish and English politicians of the time involved in the pursuit of a solution to the Irish question as it was then known. She was supposedly a friend of Irish nationalist Shane Leslie and his young daughter, Anita.

A portrait of Lady Lavery, painted by her husband, Sir John Lavery, was reproduced on banknotes from 1928 until the 1970s. This image of Lady Lavery was found as a watermark on Irish banknotes until the introduction of the Euro.

She died in 1935 in London of undisclosed causes. Her funeral mass took place at the Brompton Oratory while in Ireland a memorial service took place for her at the request of Liam Cosgrave's government.

[edit] References

• Sinead McCoole, Hazel (2ndd ed.). Lilliput Press. ISBN 1-874675-8.