Editing Iris Tree

{{short description|English poet, actress, and art model (1897–1968)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2019}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2019}}
[[File:Iris tree 1.jpg|thumb|right|Iris Tree in 1923]]
'''Iris Tree''' (27 January 1897 – 13 April 1968) was an English poet, actress, and [[art model]],<ref name=ITtate>{{cite web |author=Tate|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bell-iris-tree-l02306 |title=Display caption: ''Iris Tree'' (1915) by Vanessa Bell |year=|accessdate=20 January 2016|work=[[Tate]]}}</ref> described as a [[Bohemianism|bohemian]], an [[eccentricity (behaviour)|eccentric]], a [[wit]], and an adventurer.

==Biography==
[[File:Amedeo Modigliani 060.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Tree was the model for this c. 1916 painting by [[Amedeo Modigliani]].]]
Iris Tree's parents were actors Sir [[Herbert Beerbohm Tree]] and [[Helen Maud Tree|Helen Maud, Lady Tree]]. Her sisters were actresses [[Felicity Tree|Felicity]] and [[Viola Tree]]. An aunt was author [[Constance Beerbohm]], and her uncles were explorer and author [[Julius Beerbohm]] and [[Caricature|caricaturist]] and [[Parody|parodist]] [[Max Beerbohm]].<ref name=Treves/>

Iris was sought after as an art model while a young woman, being painted by [[Augustus John]], simultaneously by [[Duncan Grant]], [[Vanessa Bell]], and [[Roger Fry]], and sculpted by [[Jacob Epstein]], showing her [[Bob cut|bobbed hair]] (she was said to have cut off the rest and left it on a train) that, along with other behaviour, caused much scandal.<ref name=ITcooke>{{cite web |author=Rachel Cooke |author-link=Rachel Cooke |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/21/the-rainbow-picnic-daphne-fielding-iris-tree |title=''The Rainbow Picnic'' by Daphne Fielding - one bright young thing on another |date=21 September 2015|accessdate=20 January 2016|work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref><ref name=ITgrant>{{cite web |author=|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/iris-tree-18971968-41665 |title=''Iris Tree'' by Duncan Grant|date=|accessdate=20 January 2016|work=[[Art UK]]}}</ref> The Epstein sculpture {{asof|2000|lc=y}} is displayed at the [[Tate]] Britain.<ref name=Treves>{{cite web |author=Toby Treves|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/epstein-portrait-of-iris-beerbohm-tree-t07051/text-summary|title=''Portrait of Iris Beerbohm Tree'' (1915) by Sir Jacob Epstein |date=September 2000|accessdate=20 January 2016|work=[[Tate]]}}</ref> She was often photographed by [[Man Ray]], was friends with [[Nancy Cunard]] for a time, and acted alongside [[Lady Diana Cooper|Diana Cooper]] in the mid-1920s.<ref name="Parker">{{cite journal |last1=Parker |first1=Sarah |title=Gaudy Havoc: Iris Tree's performative decadent modernism |journal=Feminist Modernist Studies |date=2022 |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=181–209 |doi=10.1080/24692921.2022.2090193 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Iris studied at the [[Slade School of Art]]. She contributed verse to the 1917 [[The Sitwells|Sitwell]] [[anthology]] ''Wheels''; her published collections were ''Poems'' (1919), ''The Traveller and other Poems'' (1927), and ''The Marsh Picnic'' (1966).<ref name="Parker"/>

Iris married twice. Her first marriage was to [[Curtis Moffat]], a New York artist; [[Ivan Moffat]], the [[screenwriter]], was their son.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}} She came to America to act in [[Karl Vollmöller]]'s play ''The Miracle'' in 1925, and there met her second husband, the actor and ex-officer of the [[Austria]]n cavalry, Count [[Friedrich von Ledebur]]. The two roamed around California with their son before moving back to Europe, where they were involved in the Chekhov Theatre Studio. After their divorce, they both appeared in the 1956 film version of ''[[Moby Dick (1956 film)|Moby Dick]]''. She also appeared as a poet, essentially as herself, in [[Federico Fellini]]'s ''[[La Dolce Vita]]'' (1960).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fielding |first1=Daphne |title=The Rainbow Picnic: A Portrait of Iris Tree |date=1974 |publisher=Methuen Publishing |location=London |isbn=0413285200}}</ref>

==See also==
{{portal|Poetry}}
* [[Beerbohm family]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [[Daphne Fielding]] (1974). ''The Rainbow Picnic: A Portrait of Iris Tree'', London: Eyre Methuen
* Sarah Parker (2022) "[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24692921.2022.2090193?src=  Gaudy Havoc: Iris Tree’s performative decadent modernism]", ''Feminist Modernist Studies'', 5:2, pp. 181-209

== External links ==
{{commons category|Iris Tree}}
{{wikisource author}}
* {{IMDb name|id=0871678|name=Iris Tree}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070608150921/http://www.bris.ac.uk/theatrecollection/beerbohm.html Tree archive at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection], [[University of Bristol]]
* {{Gutenberg author|id=43394|name=Iris Tree}}
* {{Librivox author |id=12789}}
* {{YouTube|AHT4x0SwcaA|Miss Iris Tree by Augustus John at Tate}}
* {{YouTube|D2kEZN0bVw4|The Bust of Iris Tree at Denison Museum}}
* {{YouTube|cXvEARQSprg|Historian John Julius Norwich - Iris Tree}} 

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tree, Iris}}
[[Category:1897 births]]
[[Category:1968 deaths]]
[[Category:Beerbohm family]]
[[Category:English artists' models]]
[[Category:English women poets]]
[[Category:English people of Lithuanian descent]]
[[Category:English people of German descent]]
[[Category:20th-century English poets]]
[[Category:20th-century English women writers]]