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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)

View of Brockley School in Hil

SKU: 48
Oil over pencil on paper, 8 1/2 x 38 in. (21.5 x 96.5 cm.)
Presentation:
framed

Size:
Height – 21.5cm x Width – 96.5cm

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
given by the artist to Charles Mahoney; thence by descent

Provenance: given by the artist to Charles Mahoney; thence by descent
Literature: Alan Powers, ‘Labour of Love’, Country Life, April 30 1987; Annabel Freyberg, ‘The Heroine of Hilly Fields’, The World of Interiors, January 2004

The murals at Brockley County School in South London (now Prendergast School for girls) were first started in 1933 and unveiled in 1936. The scheme was supervised by Charles Mahoney, who at the time was tutor in painting at the Royal College of Art, and undertaken by him and Evelyn Dunbar, who was a senior student. As well as contributing a large mural entitled The country girl and the pail of milk, Dunbar was responsible for decorating the 39-foot balcony. For this she devised a panoramic view of the school, in the setting of the nearby Hilly Fields. In an account to appear in the forthcoming book on Dunbar, Dr. Gill Clarke writes:

‘In order to complete her preliminary sketches, which took 3-4 months, and to get the best view of the extensive buildings, Dunbar had to ascend the water tower of Lady Well Institution. In the Kent Messenger (January 1935), she described how she had to squeeze through a small trap-door and climb on to the top of an extremely narrow shaft, which led on to a tiny railed platform on the edge of the lead roof of the water tower, more than 100 feet above the ground. ‘It was like being on a gas stove’, Miss Dunbar told a Kent Messenger representative, ‘and it was so hot with the sun beating down mercilessly that the water in my paint nearly boiled’. These sketches and the ten-foot long cartoon were purchased by Rothenstein (for five guineas and ¬£25 respectively) for the Carlisle City Art Gallery (now Tullie House).’

It is probable that the oil sketch reproduced here, one of two that she gave to Mahoney, was worked up rapidly to give an outline of the colour and overall composition. Working on the Brockley murals together, Mahoney and Dunbar developed an extremely close relationship, sharing, as Rothenstein noted in his Studio article of 1936, ‘ a clear affinity of vision’. In 1937 they collaborated together on the book Gardener’s Choice. Alan Powers points out that the Brockley Murals belong to a pastoral romantic tradition in English art, which flourished in the 1930s and is often too quickly dismissed as being merely imitative of Stanley Spencer (Country Life 30 April 1987).

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THE ARTIST

Evelyn Dunbar
Evelyn
Dunbar
1906 - 1960

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. 

MORE PICTURES BY ARTIST

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Marjorie Reading, 1931

£875.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Woman Sewing c.1925

£295.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Young Woman Reading a Letter, c. 1927

£475.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketches of clarinets

£280.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Cat Sketches, c.1926

£275.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Law-abiding Citizen! c.1927

£745.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketch for Bedtime, c.1926

£425.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Story Time, c.1926

£750.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Some Games…c. 1958

£900.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Fancy Dress Ball, 1926

£1,325.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
‘Saturnalia’ c.1926

£1,950.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Service! c. 1924

£255.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Laddie, The Intruder, c.1923

£900.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
What fools…c.1926

£685.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait of William Dunbar, 1922

£895.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Woman in Red, c. 1927

£475.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Young Boy Scout, c 1925

£950.00

Reserved
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Girl looking upwards, c.1927
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Unidentified Woman with Parrot Brooch, c. 1927

£485.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Seated Nude Study

£325.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Reclining Male Nude Study

£490.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Standing Nude Studies

£350.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Head and Shoulders Male Study

£475.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
April Fool!

£480.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
View across farm buildings

£1,675.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Morning Tasks

£550.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for Children and Hands

£375.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Young Artist, circa 1920

£760.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Children Playing

£650.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Child Playing the Banjo

£375.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study related to Princess Caroline

£250.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Unidentified Etching

£350.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sacred Music on Sundays’

£275.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study 2 related to Princess Caroline

£775.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Landscape 1

£700.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Landscape 2

£975.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Artist Sketching

£700.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
View over fields

£975.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Unidentified study, c.1956

£775.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Laddie, the family dog, asleep on a chair

£900.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Florence Dunbar Peeling Apples c.1922

£300.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Miss T. and begging dog!

£175.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Christmas Tree in a pot

£350.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Figure Sitting

£350.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Various sketches, mostly of the dancing figure of Pomona for a Christmas card design for 1947

£575.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for Seated Woman reading

£250.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for Seated Woman

£250.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Flower Show Illustrations

£135.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Seated Nude Study 2

£350.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Nude Study of Woman Sitting

£600.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Nude Study with Hand on Hip

£200.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Seated Nude Study 1

£275.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Figure study for the personification of April for Country Life 1938 Gardener’s Diary, 1937

£580.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait

£375.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Farming Year Poster

£500.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Farming Equipement 1

£365.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Farming Sketch

£375.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Various Figure Studies including a Ballerina

£500.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Nude Study with artist at work

£350.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Nude Figure Studies

£300.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Chalk Nude Study with Sketching Figure in Foreground

£300.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sitting Nude Study with Umbrella

£200.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for Farm Dictionary

£325.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Prune’

£300.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The horse gin

£325.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Royal College of Art Sketch Club Annual Summer Camp, 1930

£895.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait of an Unidentified Woman

£970.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Pencil sketch for Portrait of an Airwoman, 1944

£1,500.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Seated Woman with Sleeping Dog

£1,500.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait of an Unidentified Man, c.1925

£1,375.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Ring-a-ring-a-rosies

£795.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Trenching or double-digging, 1938

£525.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
A diagrammatic explanation of trenching or double digging

£1,750.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Cape Capers!

£350.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Moving into the Cedars, 1924

£1,375.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Nude standing with hand on thigh

£600.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait sketch of an unidentified friend

£395.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketch of Family Reading

£475.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of Leaves, 1930’s

£1,475.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Artist at Her Drawing Board, mid-1920s

£450.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketches of men and women involved in various activities, of unknown purpose or destination

£500.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Potato Harvesting, 1954

£785.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The garden of The Elms, 1956

£1,950.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Garden at the Elms, Winter, 1956

£1,950.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for Gardener’s Choice: Himalayan Primrose with vignettes of a gardener to the margins

£975.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Life Class with full-length female nude in profile

£750.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketches of children in various poses.

£1,100.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Preliminary study for Mercatora

£385.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sheet of African figures

£745.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sheet of figure studies with artist looking at herself in a handheld mirror

£800.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sheet of studies for Mercatora

£800.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Artist’s sister sewing

£1,400.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for allegorical figure

£700.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study of Charles Mahoney drawing plants

£520.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Faith, Hope and Charity, 1950

£400.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The artist’s sister sleeping in an armchair

£425.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sheet of non-contemporaneous studies, some with reference to images in Country Life 1938 Gardener’s Diary, others experimenting with Indian ink, c.1948

£975.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of leaves and flowers.

£575.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Art school study of a lady seated on a Windsor chair

£950.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sheet of studies with figures gardening

£1,400.00