JoCa's Bell Portraits: the Brontës' Pen Names
Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë did not first appear in print as Charlotte, Emily and Anne. They appeared as Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell: the initials kept, the gender changed, so the books could be read before anyone decided what kind of writer had written them.
That swap is the hinge of Echoes of Haworth, and nowhere is it more direct than in the six smallest works of the series. This piece looks at those Bell portraits, and at the two groups of larger canvases around them, work by work.
Who were Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell?
They were the same three people as Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. Each sister kept her own initials inside a new name: Charlotte became Currer Bell, Emily became Ellis Bell, Anne became Acton Bell. Under those names came Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.
The sisters were working in a literary world where being known as women could stop their voices being heard. The pen names were a practical answer to that problem: put a different name on the work so the work gets through. Echoes of Haworth takes that act, rather than the moors or the romance, as its starting point.
Why did JoCa paint the pen names instead of the novels?
Because a pen name is already a portrait problem. It is a public face that is not quite the person behind it, which is exactly the territory JoCa's painting works in. Across the whole body of work, faces are built up and broken down in the same image, a method JoCa calls non finito, and the figure sits somewhere between being recognised and disappearing.
The series does not illustrate the books. As the exhibition text puts it, JoCa translates the sisters' emotional landscapes into a contemporary visual language: faces that fracture and dissolve through overlapping gestures and what the artist calls visual "glitches". In the Bell portraits that idea is at its most literal. The titles give you two identities at once, Acton Bell (Anne Brontë), and the painting refuses to settle on either.
Which works are the Bell portraits?
There are six, two for each sister. JoCa's own descriptions call the group a "6-parter". All six are 27 × 20 cm (10.6 × 7.9 in), the smallest works on the site, meant to be looked at from arm's length.
- Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë) and Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë) 2: the elder of the three sisters, as the name under which Jane Eyre was published. In the first, a figure in profile wears a gold hair ornament while the face and neck are streaked into lines; in the second, the eyes are smeared into horizontal streaks beneath dark hair.
- Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë) and Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë) 2: the middle sister, as the name under which Wuthering Heights was published. Here the interruption runs vertically: a face broken into bands of colour on a blue-grey ground, and in the second work a vertical band of streaked colour across the eyes.
- Acton Bell (Anne Brontë) and Acton Bell (Anne Brontë) 2: the younger sister, as the name under which Agnes Grey was published. Both show a figure in profile with the eyes smeared into horizontal streaks; the first has roses at the lower left.
Notice what survives. As in much of JoCa's work, the interruption takes the eyes and leaves the rest of the profile legible. You are given someone you can identify by outline, by hair, by an ornament, but not by the gaze. That is close to what a pen name does.
Who is Catherine Earnshaw, and why three large canvases?
Catherine "Cathy" Earnshaw is the central character of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Where the Bell portraits are about the writers, the Catherine Earnshaw works turn to one of the characters they invented, and the scale jumps accordingly: three canvases of 100 × 67 cm to 100 × 70 cm.
On each work's page, the artist's note is specific. JoCa drew on Cathy's passionate and rebellious nature, "all feeling, all emotion, no reason", and on how her obsession with Heathcliff ended up taking over her entire identity. That is the same subject as the pen names seen from the other side: not a self hidden behind a name, but a self consumed by someone else.
The paintings show it. In all three, a figure in a pale gown stands with the head dissolving into sweeping brushwork: blue and gold in Catherine Earnshaw (1), a swirl against green hills in Catherine Earnshaw (2), teal and pink in Catherine Earnshaw (3). The body is calm and the head is weather.
What is Winter's Morning about?
Winter's Morning (1), (2) and (3) are the largest works of the group, each 120 × 90 cm (47.2 × 35.4 in). This is the only trio that brings the three sisters together. In JoCa's words on the works' pages, it interprets Charlotte, Emily and Anne's rebel spirit as they yearn for a future filled with stories, away from the governess lives they were born to have.
The canvases are landscapes as much as portraits. A figure in a pale gown stands before water: a lake behind in the first, lake and hills in the second, a misty lake in the third. In each, the hair is blurred or streaked across the face. The ambition the title points to is not shown as a triumph. It is shown as a morning, cold and unresolved, with everything still ahead.
How do the three groups fit together?
Read them in sequence and the series has a clear shape:
- Winter's Morning: the three sisters before the books, wanting a different life.
- The Bell portraits: the moment of publication, each sister behind her chosen name.
- Catherine Earnshaw: what came out of it, a character whose identity is overtaken.
Size tracks the idea. The pen names are the smallest, most intimate works; the ambition and the fiction are painted at a scale that fills a wall.
How big are the works, and what comes with each one?
From each product page: the Bell portraits are 27 × 20 cm, the Catherine Earnshaw works 100 × 67 cm or 100 × 70 cm, and the Winter's Morning works 120 × 90 cm. Every one is oil on canvas, 2026, a unique work with no edition and no reproduction, mounted on a professional wooden frame and ready to hang, with a certificate of authenticity included.
For how collecting an original works in practice, including sizes across the whole body of work, shipping and how to ask about a painting, see Collecting original work by JoCa.
What happened to the series, and what comes next?
Echoes of Haworth opened on 17 September 2026 at Galera 32, Iker Ortiz's space in Narvarte Poniente, Mexico City, in collaboration with Alessandra Migliano's Galería Errante, curated by Rafael Pérez y Pérez and produced by Napkin71. Every available work found a collector in under two hours. The full account is in Echoes of Haworth: the Brontë series that sold out in under two hours, and Art of NOMA published the press release.
Next is Invisibilis at the Centro Cultural Caja Real, San Luis Potosí, from October 2026 to January 2027, JoCa's second institutional solo exhibition, followed by a first solo presentation outside Mexico during Miami Art Week. Dates and venues are kept current on the Exhibitions page.
To ask about any work in the series, use the contact page.
Frequently asked questions
What pen names did the Brontë sisters use?
Charlotte published as Currer Bell, Emily as Ellis Bell and Anne as Acton Bell. JoCa's Bell portraits take those three names as their titles.
How many works are in JoCa's Bell portraits?
Six: two each for Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë), Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë) and Acton Bell (Anne Brontë), all oil on canvas, 27 × 20 cm, 2026.
Does Echoes of Haworth illustrate Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre?
No. The series takes the sisters and one of their characters, Catherine Earnshaw, as a starting point and translates their emotional landscapes into fractured portraits rather than illustrating scenes.
Are the Echoes of Haworth paintings originals?
Yes. Each is a unique oil on canvas with no edition and no reproduction, mounted on a wooden frame, with a certificate of authenticity.