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Nina Hamnett (February 14, 1890 – December
16, 1956) was an artist and writer, known as the
Queen of Bohemia.

Hamnett was born in Tenby, Pembrokeshire,
Wales|South Wales, United Kingdom. From 1906 to
1907 she studied at the Pelham Art School and then
at the London School of Art until 1910. In 1914
she went to the Montparnasse Quarter in Paris,
France  to study at Marie Vassilieff's Academy.

On her first night in the Bohemianism|Bohemian
community she went to the café La Rotond where
the man at the next table introduced himself as
"Modigliani, painter and Jew". In addition to
making close friends with Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo
Picasso, Serge Diaghilev, and Jean Cocteau, she
stayed for a while at La Ruche with many of the
leading members of the avant-garde living there at
the time. In Montparnasse she also met her
husband, the Norway|Norwegian artist Roald
Kristian.

Flamboyantly unconventional, Nina Hamnett once
danced nude on a Montparnasse café table just for
the "hell of it".  Very quickly, she became a
well-known Bohemian personality throughout Paris
and modelled for many artists.  Her reputation
soon reached back to London, where for a time, she
went to work at the Omega Workshops on decorative
art. Her artistic creations were widely exhibited
during World War I including at the Royal Academy
in London as well as the Salon d'Automne in Paris.
Back in England, she taught at the Westminster
Technical Institute from 1917 to 1918. After
divorcing Kristian, she took up with another free
spirit, composer E.J Moeran.



During her 40 year career, Hamnett also worked
with Bloomsbury group|Bloomsbury artist Roger Fry
assisting him with the avant-garde productions of
fabrics, clothes, murals, furniture, rugs, and the
like. The photo shown here is a 1918 portrait of a
very modest Nina Hamnett painted by Fry.

From the mid 1920s until the end of World War II,
the area known as Fitzrovia was London's main
Bohemian artistic centre. The place took its name
from the popular Fitzroy Tavern on the corner of
Charlotte and Windmill Streets that formed the
area's epicentre. Home of the café life in
Montparnasse, it was Nina Hamnett's favourite
hangout as well as that of her friend from her
home town, Augustus John, and later another
Wales|Welshman, the poet Dylan Thomas.

In 1932 Hamnett published Laughing Torso, a tale
of her bohemian life, which become a bestseller in
the United Kingdom and United States. The poet
Aleister Crowley unsuccessfully sued her and the
publisher for libel over allegations of Black
Magic made in her book. 

Although she won the case, the situation
profoundly affected her for the remainder of her
life. Alcoholism would soon overtake her many
talents and a tragic Queen of the Fitzroy spent a
good part of the last few decades of her life at
the bar, trading anecdotes for drinks.

Twenty-three years after her first book Laughing
Torso was published, Hamnett, in poor health,
released a followup book aptly titled: Is She a
Lady?.

Nina Hamnett died in London, England in 1965.

A biography, Nina Hamnett: Queen Of Bohemia, by
Denise Hooker was published in 1986.