Draft:Susanne Foxton Ferguson

Susanne Alexandrine Delphine Foxton Ferguson was born on 21 October 1867 in Hamburg, Germany, to Carl Albert Ernst Engel, a merchant, and Maria Franziska Anna Hoffmann of Tučapy, Bohemia. She trained as a concert pianist at the Hamburg Conservatory^[3][4], moving in her late teens to Scarborough to live with her aunt.

On 26 October 1897, she married Arthur Foxton Ferguson at the Parish Church in Pinner, Middlesex. The couple had two children. Arthur died in 1920, and for several years Ferguson moved to India as companion to the wife of Sir Ranbir Singh, the Maharajah of Jind before returning to London.^[5]

Ferguson joined The Mother Church in June 1906 ^[6] and, at the time of her admission, resided in Kensington, London and was a member of Second Church of Christ, Scientist.^[7] Following a course of instruction with E. Blanche Ward CSB,^[8] she became a Christian Science practitioner by 1907.^{[9] [10]} Between 1907 and 1940 she maintained a practice in London, moving to Tunbridge Wells in 1941. From 1943 until 1947, she advertised in the Journal in both Tunbridge Wells and London. She practiced for over 50 years providing spiritual help through prayer based on the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy as given in the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”.

Ferguson's association and correspondence with Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth spanned 30 years, with 40 letters from Ferguson to Nicholson and two to Hepworth preserved in the Tate Archive, alongside Nicholson's diaries confirming his consultations.^[11][12][13] Throughout the early 1930s Nicholson and Hepworth, together with Nicholson's then wife Winifred, were in constant Christian Science counselling with Ferguson.^[14] In 1931, Winifred contacted Ferguson about Nicholson's developing affair with Barbara Hepworth. Ferguson replied with suggestions intended to help the couple, but Nicholson objected to her emphasis on ‘adultery’ and ‘cruelty’ to the children.^[15]

Ferguson was in regular communication with both throughout their marriage (1938–1951) and during Hepworth's postnatal health crises, as when in 1934 following the birth of triplets, Hepworth relied for her only moral support on Feguson "working overtime" to ensure the nurse, Peters, would not leave her.^[16]

Hepworth's first pierced sculpture, Pierced Form (1932) was produced "at the height of her enthusiasm for a religion that denied the reality of material existence".^{[17] [18]} Hepworth's letters to Nicholson during the early 1930s refer to “the new, harmonious vision of the world appearing before her eyes through Christian Science”,^[19] and in 1932 she wrote “You know that Science Thought as I know it is the very core of my being – the lovely genesis of perfect creation and unfolding of spiritual ideas.”^[20] Subsequent letters report Hepworth working “hard every day at Science” and consulting weekly with Ferguson who “works for all of us all the time” helping on every point for no money just as a friend. ^[21]

In a letter dated 16 August 1934 to his then wife Winifred, Nicholson writes that he is “very impressed with the fineness of Mrs Ferguson’s thought - she is one of the really fine people”, and again in March 1936 “I had to go out to dinner in Putney and went on the way to see Mrs Ferguson & had a talk with her. She has grown very beautiful and she has an idea as abstract & profound as a Mondrian”.^[22] In May 1939, Nicholson gave Ferguson a lithograph of ‘Painting 1936’ inscribed ‘To Mrs Ferguson with love from Ben, May 1939’.^[23]

Ferguson wrote to Hepworth on 28 October 1952 stating that “infinite Divine love, when recognised, will and must manifest itself in your human experience by annulling all sense of poverty or limitations.”^[24] Following the death of Hepworth's son Paul in February 1953, Ferguson wrote to Hepworth on 1 March 1953: “God eliminates all worry and pain and trouble and brings us peace and happiness. We will work out this problem of fear together with each other.” ^[25]

In 1960 Nicholson looked to Ferguson for what he referred to as “absent healing” and “supply”,^[26] referring to Eddy's statement that “God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies”.^[27] He also sought Ferguson's spiritual support on the sale of paintings. ^[28] Just before her death, Ferguson provided what Nicholson described as a “fantastically constructive result” for the design of one phase of a new house he was building.^[29]

Winifred Nicholson had been introduced to Christian Science by Margaret Nash in the 1920s^{[30] [31]} and had ties to other artists in similar networks,^[32] including Margaret's husband, surrealist painter and war artist Paul Nash. Jonathan Evens records that Nash shared a Christian Science practitioner with Hepworth and Nicholson.^[33] Following Paul Nash's death, Margaret sent a copy of Paul's posthumously published autobiography, “Outline” to Ferguson inscribed “To darling Fergie who was Paul’s best friend”.^[34]

Hepworth and Nash held a joint wartime exhibition at Temple Newsom House in April 1943 and Ferguson wrote to Nicholson:

The warfare we are fighting is really only a warfare with our sense of life in matter – we need to see, and to know that we have the Mind of Christ, and we come into ‘at-one-ment’ with Mind through our own understanding.…Will you please tell Barbara that I am bearing in mind the exhibition. I love the thought that Divine Mind judges Its own creation – and finds it perfect.^[35]

Ferguson's opinion that the exhibited work was “the emanation of this Mind” was shared by Hepworth who felt that her work would have a healing effect.^[36]

Ferguson continued her Christian Science practice into the 1960s, primarily in London, where she resided at Dolphin Square. Nicholson's diaries from the early 1930s to 1950s include three addresses for Ferguson, documenting her movements from the 1940s to the late 1950s.^[37] In 1960, Ferguson's granddaughter Bunty Higgins wrote to Nicholson advising that declining health prevented her from writing personally but conveying Ferguson's optimism that Nicholson's concerns would “resolve themselves harmoniously” and urging him to consult other practitioners namely Max Kappeler and Peggy Brook.^[38]

When Ferguson died on 17 February 1961 at her Dolphin Square apartment, aged 93,^[39] Bunty Higgins wrote to inform Nicholson of her death.^[40]