Dominick Elwes

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Dominick Elwes
Born
Bede Evelyn Dominick Elwes

(1931-08-17)17 August 1931
elopement scandal
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1958; div. 1969)​
Children
Parent

Bede Evelyn Dominick Elwes (24 August 1931 – 5 September 1975) was an English portrait painter whose much publicised elopement with an heiress in 1957 created an international scandal.

Early life

Elwes (pronounced "El-wez") was born on 24 August 1931 at

MP for St. Marylebone
(1928–1932).

Elwes was descended from the Roman Catholic Cary-Elwes (sometimes known simply as Elwes) family, which includes such noted British prelates, priests and monks as abbot

Second World War in the United States, after which he returned to England to attend Downside School in Somerset
.

Elopement

At age 26, Dominick Elwes met and wished to marry 19-year-old shipping heiress

wardship proceedings.[2]

On 27 November 1957, Geoffrey Kennedy obtained a restraining order against Elwes from Justice Sir Ronald Roxburgh, barring the couple from marrying.[3][4] The High Court Tipstaff was not authorised, however, to apprehend Elwes anywhere outside England or Wales.[5] After initially attempting to marry in Scotland while being pursued by the press, Elwes and Kennedy eloped to Havana, Cuba, where they married in a civil ceremony on 27 January 1958 as guests of American mobster Meyer Lansky, who provided accommodation for them at his hotel, the Habana Riviera.[6][7]

When

Brixton Prison where he remained for two weeks while awaiting trial for contempt of court for defying the judge's order to return Miss Kennedy to her parents.[10][11] At trial the judge accepted that Elwes loved his bride but commented that every parent knows that love was not "readily convertible into bread and butter" for the support of a wife. In his ruling he directed that Elwes be released from custody but also ordered that Kennedy remain a ward of court. Elwes and Kennedy were married until the union was dissolved in London in January 1969. Elwes never remarried.[12] He and Kennedy had three children, film producer Cassian Elwes, artist Damian Elwes, and actor Cary Elwes
.

Career

In January 1960 Elwes became the assistant editor of Lilliput Magazine until its closure in July of that same year.[13] From 1960 to 1962, he was the Company Director of Dome Press where he began the newsweekly Topic Magazine as editorial director, along with William Rees-Davies and Maurice Macmillan. While at Topic, Elwes discovered and hired a then unknown art student to be a graphic artist for the magazine, Ridley Scott, who went on to become a famous director. In 1963, together with Nicholas Luard, he published and subsequently became the director of Design Yearbook, which developed into the book-packaging firm November Books.[14] The company's clients included Thames & Hudson, a publisher of books on art, architecture, design and visual culture. In 1964, he co-wrote a book with Luard, Refer to Drawer: Being a Penetrating Survey of a Shameful National Practice – Hustling, which included illustrations by cartoonist John Glashan. Elwes subsequently became a member of the National Union of Journalists.

Following in his father's footsteps Elwes then became a portrait painter, painting many of London's

Mediterranean-style apartment complex, completed in 1970. Clients included Luard and the actor Hugh Millais. In 1975, Elwes and George Britnell became owners of a hair salon, Figurehead, on Pont Street in Knightsbridge which he filled with paintings by his father. His then ex-wife helped promote the salon for an article in The Daily Telegraph.[17] One of Elwes' portraits was of John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan
, who disappeared in November 1974 after the murder of his children's nanny.

Death

Elwes died by suicide at 1 Stewart's Grove,

barbiturates in 1975.[12]
It happened about a month after the death of his father, and about a month before the death of his mother. His body was found by his girlfriend Melissa Wyndham.

Artworks

  • 1969 – Portrait of John Aspinall
  • 1970 – Portrait of Min Aspinall & Mushie
  • 1971 – Portrait of Sir Vivyan (or Vyvian) Edward
    Naylor-Leyland
    , 3rd Baronet
  • 1972 – Portrait of
    Lord Lucan[18]

Bibliography

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ "Interview" (PDF). carolinephillips.net.
  2. ISBN 978-0-19-826899-4
    .
  3. ^ San Antonio Light (11 December 1957, p. 9)
  4. ^ Gossip: a history of high society, 1920–1970, p. 198, by Andrew Barrow
  5. ^ "Mr. Dominic Elwes. Order by Roxburgh, J. for return to England from Scotland of Miss Tessa Kennedy". Nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  6. ^ a b "Family Tree Maker's Genealogy Site: User Home Page Book: Cary Elwes: Ahnentafel Report of (Ivan Simon) Cary\Elwes\". Archived from the original on 12 October 2014. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
  7. ^ "The Tessa Kennedy Collection at Christie's". Homes and Property. 12 March 2014. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  8. ^ The New York Times (1 April 1958, p. 2)
  9. ^ The New York Times, 2 April 1958, p. 63.
  10. ^ "The Glasgow Herald – Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  11. ^ "The Catalogue: Full Details". The National Archives. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  12. ^ a b Roger Wilkes (9 September 2000). "Inside story: Stewart's Grove". The Telegraph.
  13. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2 December 2014. Retrieved 15 June 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. ^ "Nicholas Luard obituary". The Independent. London. 28 May 2004. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  15. ^ Louis Jebb. "Philip Jebb Architect". Philipjebb.com. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  16. ^ Jebb, Louis (13 April 1995). "OBITUARY: Philip Jebb". The Independent. London.
  17. ^ "Britt ekland". 8 July 2014.
  18. ^ Elwes, Dominic (1972). "Portrait of Lord Lucan". ladylucan.co.uk. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.
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