Evie Hone was born in Dublin in 1894. She studied drawing and painting at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London before training at the Westminster School of Art under Walter Sickert. It was here, in 1920, that Hone befriended her lifelong companion and fellow artist, Mainie Jellett. After completing their studies in London, the pair travelled to Paris where they joined the studios of André Lhote and Albert Gleizes.
She returned to Dublin in the 1930s and died in Rathfarnham in 1955.
Hone is perhaps best known for her achievements in working with stained glass. From the beginning of the 1930s her main artistic preoccupation was stained glass art, building a reputation for design and outstanding technique. In 1933 she joined the studio run by Sarah Purser, the stained glass co-operative An Túr Gloine. After converting to Catholicism in 1937, Hone’s work became decidedly more religious. Her first commission comprised three small panelsfor the window of St. Naithi’s Church in Dundrum, Co. Dublin.
In 1938 Hone was commissioned by the Department of Industry and Commerce in Dublin to design a window for the Irish Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair of 1939. Hone received international recognition following her design of a window in the Eton College Chapel, replacing one that had been destroyed during a German bombing raid in 1941, ranking her among the best stained glass artists of her era.
Throughout her career Hone produced over a hundred and fifty stained glass panels as well as numerous oils and watercolours. Bridging the arts and the crafts, her work consistently conveyed strong coloration, heavy symbolism and brilliant technique. In 1943 she was one of the founding members of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art.