Stella Schmolle | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1908 |
| Died | 5 March 1975 (aged 66–67) |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | |
| Known for | Painting |
Stella Schmolle, (1908-5 March 1975) was a British painter, known for the paintings she produced while serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II and for her post-war portrait paintings.
Schmolle was born in Barnes in west London. She attended the Central School of Arts and Crafts. [1] Upon graduating, in 1939, she worked as an commercial artist and illustrator. Works by Schmolle were shown at the Royal Academy between 1938 and 1940. [2] [3]
In December 1941, Schmolle applied to join the Art Department of the Ministry of Information but was not accepted. However the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC, of the same Ministry agreed to assist her in obtaining materials to continue working as an artist during the Second World War. In 1942, Schmolle was conscripted into the Auxiliary Territorial Service, ATS, and initially did camouflage work before becoming an draughtswomen to an ATS intelligence officer. [2] She served with the ATS in both Britain and, following the D-Day landings in 1944, also France and Belgium. [4] During this period she continued to paint. Her subjects included scenes showing French collaborators in Normandy, British troops clearing an SS headquarters in Brussels and both ATS and civilian activities in Britain. [5] Eventually seventeen of these pictures were purchased by the War Artists Advisory Committee.
After the war Schmolle was commissioned to produce a Stations of the Cross series for the Roman Catholic Chapel at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. [6] She became an art teacher and was a well known portrait painter. For a time she taught at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where she had been a student. [1] Works by Schmolle are held by the British Museum, [7] Auckland Art Gallery, the National Army Museum and the Imperial War Museum, which acquired the works previously purchased by WAAC. [8]
Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE RA was an English painter. Shortly after leaving the Slade School of Art, Spencer became well known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if in Cookham, the small village beside the River Thames where he was born and spent much of his life. Spencer referred to Cookham as "a village in Heaven" and in his biblical scenes, fellow-villagers are shown as their Gospel counterparts. Spencer was skilled at organising multi-figure compositions such as in his large paintings for the Sandham Memorial Chapel and the Shipbuilding on the Clyde series, the former being a First World War memorial while the latter was a commission for the War Artists' Advisory Committee during the Second World War.
Bernard Hailstone was an English painter, best known for his Second World War portraits of transport and civil defence workers painted in Britain, his portraits of members of the Armed Forces painted overseas and his post-war portraits of the royal family, musicians, stage and film actors.
George Vernon Meredith Frampton was a British painter and etcher, successful as a portraitist in the 1920s–1940s. His artistic career was short and his output limited because his eyesight began to fail in the 1950s, but his work is on display at the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Gallery and Imperial War Museum.
Dame Laura Knight was an English artist who worked in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and drypoint. Knight was a painter in the figurative, realist tradition, who embraced English Impressionism. In her long career, Knight was among the most successful and popular painters in Britain. Her success in the male-dominated British art establishment paved the way for greater status and recognition for women artists.
Sir Walter Thomas Monnington PRA was an English painter, notable for several large murals, his work as a war artist and for his presidency of the Royal Academy.
Evelyn Mary Dunbar was a British artist, illustrator and teacher. She is notable for recording women's contributions to World War II on the United Kingdom home front, particularly the work of the Women's Land Army. She was the only woman working for the War Artists' Advisory Committee on a full-time salaried basis. Dunbar had a deep devotion to nature and a particular affection for the landscape of Kent. Dunbar was modest regarding her achievements and outside of the post-war mainstream art world which has led to some neglect of her work until recent years. She painted murals at Brockley County Secondary School, and was a member of the Society of Mural Painters. After the war she painted portraits, allegorical pictures and especially landscapes. She attempted a return to mural painting in 1958 with a commission at Bletchley Park Teacher Training College, but was unable to fulfil the original specification.
Ethel Léontine Gabain, later Ethel Copley, was a French-Scottish artist. Gabain was a renowned painter and lithographer and among the founding members of the Senefelder Club. While she was known for her oil portraits of actresses, Gabain was one of the few artists of her time able to live on the sale of her lithographs. She also did etchings, dry-points, as well as some posters.
Roland Vivian Pitchforth RA ARWS was an English painter, teacher and an official British war artist during the Second World War. He excelled at watercolours and in later years concentrated on landscapes, seascapes and paintings of atmospheric effects.
British official war artists were a select group of artists who were employed on contract, or commissioned to produce specific works during the First World War, the Second World War and select military actions in the post-war period. Official war artists have been appointed by governments for information or propaganda purposes and to record events on the battlefield; but there are many other types of war artist.
The War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC), was a British government agency established within the Ministry of Information at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and headed by Sir Kenneth Clark. Its aim was to compile a comprehensive artistic record of Britain throughout the war. This was achieved both by appointing official war artists, on full-time or temporary contracts and by acquiring artworks from other artists. When the committee was dissolved in December 1945 its collection consisted of 5,570 works of art produced by over four hundred artists. This collection was then distributed to museums and institutions in Britain and around the world, with over half of the collection, some 3,000 works, going to the Imperial War Museum.
Charles Ernest Cundall,, , was an English painter of topographical subjects and townscapes, best known for his large panoramic canvases.
Dennis William Dring was a British portraitist.
Frances Macdonald, was an English painter known for her panoramic scenes painted in Wales, the south of France and in London during World War II.
Rupert Norman Shephard was an English painter, illustrator and art teacher.
Paul Lucien Dessau,, was a British artist best known for the paintings he produced during the Second World War whilst serving as a fireman in London.
Robert Norman Hepple was an English portrait painter, engraver and sculptor, best known for his portraits of the British royal family. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1948 and served as their president from 1979 to 1983. Elected as an Associate Member to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1954, Hepple became an Academician in 1961.
Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring is a 1943 painting by the British artist Laura Knight depicting a young woman, Ruby Loftus, working at an industrial lathe cutting the screw of a breech-ring for a Bofors anti-aircraft gun. The painting was commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee as part of the British war effort in the Second World War.
Walter John Bayes was an English painter and illustrator who was a founder member of both the Camden Town Group and the London Group and also a renowned art teacher and critic.
Dorothy Josephine Coke was an English artist notable for her work as a war artist on the British home front during the Second World War. Coke was also an art teacher and as an artist was known for her watercolours, which have a very free, open-air quality to them.
A Balloon Site, Coventry is an oil-on-canvas painting undertaken in 1942 by the British artist Laura Knight. It portrays a group of people—mostly women—working to launch a barrage balloon on the outside of Coventry, an industrial city in the Midlands that was the target of a German bombing raid in November 1940, when over 10,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on the city.
| Authority control databases: Artists |
|---|
