Mary Beare

Mary Beare never left London, but her pencil portraits could make you feel the chill of a country house hallway. She drew people the way a polite guest sizes them up, quietly, with a few sharp lines around the collar and cuffs. One of her subjects, Margaret Rolfe, looks up from the page like she’s halfway through a thought.

Try finding Beare’s drawing of her in the V&A’s online catalog; it’s a small thing, but it’s got more personality than half the big oil paintings hanging nearby.