Jessie Case Vesel

Jessie Case Vesel was born in September 1855 to an English family in Hampstead.^[1][2] In 1895 she attended an art school in Schwabing where she was taught by the Slovenian painter Ferdo Vesel.^[3]

She and Ferdo Vesel grew closer, and at the beginning of 1897 she posed for him for her portrait, which is now held by the National Gallery of Slovenia.^[4] In September 1897 they married in Hampstead.^[5][6] After the wedding they travelled around Europe for more than a year.^[1][3][7] In 1899 they moved to his homeland where they lived in the former Ursuline monastery in Mekinje, Kamnik.^[3][7] In 1900 Jessie Case Vesel took part in the first Slovene art exhibition in Ljubljana. She exhibited two watercolour landcapes: Pri apnenici (By the Lime Kiln) and V neveljski dolini (In the Nevelje Valley).^[8][9][10] In the exhibition catalogue she is listed as a painter living in Kamnik.^[10] In the summer of 1901 she and her husband moved to the Grumlof estate in Lower Carniola, which they purchased with her money.^[11][12] She visited England again in 1901.^[13] Soon afterward she and her husband again set off on a trip around Europe.^[1] In 1908 her husband divorced her, and she returned to England.^[7] She never returned to Slovenia.^[7] In 1913 she lived in St Ives in Cornwall, where there was a large artists’ colony, and she continued painting.^[14] She died on 20. March 1937 in Exmoor.^[15][16]