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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)
The Garden at the Elms

£3,500.00

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

£1,800.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Muse with Crown, Design for Christmas Card 2

£780.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Children Playing in Various Poses

£500.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sheet of studies for Gardeners’ Choice

£975.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies II for the cover of Gardeners Choice, 1936-37 [HMO 363]

£380.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Various sketches

£650.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Small girl

£385.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Design 2 for personal correspondence

£550.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Preliminary study for Gladiolus tristis

£485.00

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

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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Hot pie

£975.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Irises and aquilegias

£485.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sheet with studies of faces in profile

£795.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of a seated couple reading scrolls and a woman carrying bowls, mid 1930’s

£750.00

Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Design for personal correspondence
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Proposal

£940.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Seven figures

£490.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Gardener and various sketches, circa 1932

£685.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Layout for agricultural children’s book, circa 1948

£490.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies for Faith, Hope and Charity II, circa 1948

£590.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketches for Faith, Hope and Charity, circa 1948

£875.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Campanula Rapunculoides

£340.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
An illustration for an unidentified childrens story

£950.00

Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketches and designs for an unrealised painting entitled Evening in the Country
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of Geranium armenum
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketches of women

£695.00

Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Preliminary sketches for the supporters at either end of the Hilly Fields mural frieze at Brockley School
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for the Brockley Murals

£1,375.00

Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for the background to The Queue at the Fish Shop
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for background of A Land Girl and the Bail Bull

£2,350.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of Gladiolus tristis for page 103 of Gardeners Choice, c.1936 [HMO 36, cat 53]

£480.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of Gladiolus tristis for page 103 of Gardeners Choice, c.1936 [HMO 36, cat 55]

£350.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of Gladiolus tristis for page 103 of Gardeners Choice, c.1936 [HMO 36, cat 54]

£435.00

Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
A set of 20 vignettes, purpose unknown, several of which can be associated with decorative projects Dunbar was involved with in the mid-1930
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for a Christmas card design, 1942 [HMO 340]

£450.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketchbook 1

£440.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketchbook 2

£880.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies for Faith, Hope and Charity, an unrealised allegorical painting [HMO 699]

£1,950.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies for Various Womens Land Army Activities, Including Singling Turnips [HMO 313]

£2,900.00

Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
September, preparatory drawing for Country Life 1938 Gardeners Diary [HMO 232]
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies for the cover of Gardeners Choice, 1936-37 [HMO 363]
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Colour sketch for the Hilly Fields mural frieze at Brockley County School for Boys [HMO 525]

£2,875.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Roses of Britain [HMO 783]

£950.00

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
First page of a letter to Jane Carrington, c.1936 [HMO 688]

£990.00