Self-Taught Artist Who Started Drawing At 70

Lady Shalimar

Frances Montague, self-taught artist.

I read a Huffington Post article recently about a woman named Frances Montague. She was a self-taught artist who started drawing at 70. These kinds of stories fascinate me and make me wonder what inspired them so late in life to begin creating works of art.

She was born in 1906. In the middle of her life, she changed her name to Lady Shalimar after a fancy perfume. During the last twenty years of her life, she created what seem to be autobiographical works of art. Fantastic line drawings accentuated with splashes of watercolor and glitter, depict her accomplishments and highlights in her life, or at least what seems to be her life.

If Montague’s stories are true, her ballpoint pen drawings illustrate several lifetimes’ worth of experience. One story implies her big debut, her birth, was in the Paris Opera House. Many of her works illustrate supposed performances at various theaters and clubs. She weaves a colorful autobiography as a belly dancer, lion tamer, opera singer, and ballerina. Along the sides of her artwork, she often indicated the name of a theater in addition to what appear to be rave reviews of her performance.

Lady Shalimar Frances Montague, “Les Sylphildes Ballet 3 World Tours Star Balletrina” 1985 watercolor ballpoint glitter on paper

Fantasy or Reality?

Gallerists and collectors of her work admit that it is highly unlikely that Montague actually did all of the things (if any) that she claims to have done in her art because she suffered from agoraphobia, the fear of the outdoors. It isn’t clear whether she ever even visited the places noted in her works.

Interesting to say the least. And curious. It makes me think that here was a woman so full of life, but trapped indoors by an irrational fear of the outdoors. Her phobia prevented her from accomplishing the things she dreamed about. And, at 70 years old, I imagine that she began realizing her own mortality and in turn realized that she had to get the life she dreamed of out of her mind somehow. What better way to do that than through art?

Lady Shalimar Frances Montague, “3 World Tours Royal Imperial Ballet Bolshoi St Petersburg Russia” 1987 watercolor ballpoint glitter on paper, Kerry Schuss Gallery

She must have had highly detailed imagined scenarios in her mind, performances that brought the house down and adventures lived in the relative safety of her mind and the four walls of her home. These were probably scenarios repeated in her mind until they seemed entirely real and this came through in her artwork. Collectors have said that it’s unlikely, but difficult to know for sure because her artwork makes it seem so real.

I suppose we’ll never know for sure. Frances Montague, the self-taught artist died in 1996. If her artwork does depict an imagined lifetime as I’m guessing, then she managed to do the impossible given her phobia. She lived a life on stage as a performer through her dynamic works of art. I don’t think she knew Dr. Wayne Dyer, but she apparently accomplished one of his top ten secrets for success and inner peace… “Don’t die with your music still in you.” I think either way, it’s safe to say that she didn’t.