Anna Zinkeisen
(1901 - 1976)
A Hooded Falcon, circa 1955
£2,950
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Anna Zinkeisen (1901 - 1976)
Signed and inscribed ‘4 4 0’ on the reverse
Watercolour on card, 10 5/8 x 14 1/2 in. (27 √ó 37 cm.)
Size:
Height – 27cm
Width – 37cm
Provenance: King Street Galleries, 14 June 1984; MichaelWhitehall.
This picture depicts Lady Limerick’s Free Buffet at London Bridge Station, with the flags of the allies suspended overhead.
It
was Lady Limerick who had the brilliant idea of planning a Free
Refreshment Buffet for travelling soldiers and sailors at London’s
Bridge Station, and helped to start the Buffet with funds raised on
Shamrock Day. Here the travelling soldier or sailor can get a free meal
at any hour between 8 a.m. and 10 p. m. – hot tea, coffee, or cocoa,
sandwiches, cake, and cigarettes, and for those who are going to the
Front letter paper and pencils are provided. An average of 1200 men or
more are thus fed per day.The authorities are immensely pleased with
this scheme, as the men are kept away from the public-house, and the men
also greatly appreciate the interest shown in them by the thirty or
forty lady workers (Lady Randolph [Jennie Jerome] Churchill
(ed.),Women’sWarWork, C. Arthur Pearson, London, 1916).
Anna Zinkeisen studied drawing and anatomy before winning
a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools in 1916 to study
sculpture ‘ exhibiting at the RA in 1919 and winning the
Landseer Award in 1920 and 1921.
On leaving the RA, she worked with her sister Doris on
murals for the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth liners and
produced notable portraits. She also provided illustrations for
several books, including Sophy Cassmajor by Margery Sharp,
published in 1934.
While volunteering as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital during
the Second World War, Zinkeisen made pathological drawings of
war injuries for the Royal College of Surgeons. She was awarded
RDI in 1940. In her self-portrait of 1944 (held in the NPG),
clutching a bundle of paint brushes and wearing the bracelet of
the St John’s Ambulance Brigade, for which she was volunteering,
her gaze leaves the viewer in no doubt as to her professional status.
