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Evelyn Dunbar
(1906 - 1960)
Self-portrait, c. 1927
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
£2,900
Pencil and pen & ink on paper
Size:
Height – 38cm
Width – 55.8cm
1 in stock
Evelyn Dunbar wrote to the WAAC in December 1939 offering her services. At the time she was working in her sister’s haberdashery shop, having abandoned a plan to open an art gallery due to the war. She expressed particular interest in women’s agricultural and horticultural subjects.
For Dunbar, World War II offered new opportunities to explore the relationship between people and the natural world. In pictures examining how the war effort affected the home front, we see Dunbar move out of the realm of the domestic garden and into the productive world of farming. As well as demonstrating Dunbar’s occasional experimentation with new painting techniques, these pictures sometimes served a didactic purpose in showing the correct ways of undertaking manual tasks.
We are grateful to Christopher Campbell-Howes for assistance.
Evelyn Dunbar studied at Rochester School of Art, Chelsea School
of Art (1927) and the Royal College of Art (1929’33). She painted
murals from 1933 -36 at Brockley School, a collaboration with her
RCA tutor (and lover) Cyril Mahoney (1903’1968) and in 1937
they wrote and illustrated together Gardeners’ Choice.
In 1938 she set up the Blue Gallery in Rochester, exhibiting her
own work alongside that of Edward Bawden (1903’1989) and
Barnett Freedman (1901’1958) and others. In 1940 she was
appointed an official war artist, becoming the only woman (amongst
36 men) to be given a full time salaried position by the WAAC.
She held her only solo exhibition at Withersdane, Wye, Kent
in 1953, although the WAAC included numerous pieces in touring
exhibitions ranging from Aberdeen Art Gallery to MOMA, New York.
A posthumous exhibition was held in 2006 at St Barbe
Museum and Art Gallery, and in 2015 Liss Llewellyn mounted a
major retrospective of her recently rediscovered studio at Pallant
House Gallery.
![Evelyn Dunbar - Study II for designs for an embroidered quilt [HMO 689]](https://i0.wp.com/lissllewellyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Evelyn-Dunbar-Study-II-for-designs-for-an-embroidered-quilt-HMO-689.jpg?fit=791%2C1024&ssl=1)
![Evelyn Dunbar - Study I for designs for an embroidered quilt [HMO 689]](https://i0.wp.com/lissllewellyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Evelyn-Dunbar-Study-I-for-designs-for-an-embroidered-quilt-HMO-689.jpg?fit=676%2C1024&ssl=1)
![Evelyn Dunbar - Colour study for sub-gallery spandrels at Brockley County School for Boys [HMO 551]](https://i0.wp.com/lissllewellyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Evelyn-Dunbar-Colour-study-for-sub-gallery-spandrels-at-Brockley-County-School-for-Boys-HMO-551.jpg?fit=800%2C532&ssl=1)
