Sybil Meugens

Born: circa 1877 in Calcutta.

Died: 1941.

Sybil Meugens was one of three children born to Edith Meugens. She studied art with Stephen Haweis (1878-1969) and at the Académie Colarossi. Returning to art after a four-year hiatus, she injected her "Oriental sympathies and her learning to the occult" into her oil paintings, some of which were exhibited at the West End's prestigious Ryder Galleries in 1915.

She was a friend of both Aleister Crowley and Rose Kelly and assisted Crowley in the distribution of his books. Crowley wrote of her "The lady is an Anglo-Indian of Dutch extraction—mistress of Bimby 'Hawkes,' Gerald Festus Kelly and anyone else she could get. Lived in windmills, Martello Tower, etc. and is now probably Red Cross, YMCA."

The Star and the Garter commemorated Crowley's entire circle of women at the time:  fiancée Eileen Gray was the star, while the garter was three other ladies, most likely Kelly’s fiancée, Sybil Meugens; model Nina Olivier; and sculptress Kathleen Bruce.

Portrait of Sybil Meugens

by Aleister Crowley