Phyllis Ginger; Watercolour recorder of wartime Britain
Hyfler/Rosner
interim, I saw some of her work in Bath. So I'm posting
another one for good measure. She was, like so many of the
WW2 war artists, terrific. It's too bad photography and
video have changed the way we record war for posterity.
Gill Saunders
Wednesday August 10, 2005
Guardian
The artist and illustrator Phyllis Ginger, who has died aged
97, will be best remembered for her contribution to the
second war world project, Recording Britain, which in all
produced more than 1,500 watercolours and drawings, now
housed in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
The project was initiated by Sir Kenneth Clark, who had been
seconded to the Ministry of Information from his post as
director of the National Gallery; it was meant to be a home
front equivalent of the work of the official war artists.
From 1940 to 1943, his recruits recorded the changing face
of Britain, which was threatened by bombs and the
possibility of imminent invasion, and by the deleterious
effects of "progress" - road building, housing development
and suburban sprawl.
Those who worked on the project were ineligible to be war
artists in combat situations because of their age,
disability or gender; many women, often fresh from art
school, took part.
Ginger painted 19 watercolours, starting with views around
Regent's Park, not far from St John's Wood, where she lived
with her husband, silversmith Leslie Durbin; they had
married in 1940. Then heavy bombing of London prompted her
move to Keynsham, near Bristol. There she undertook
commissions to record local architectural highlights,
notably the Regency villas and elegant streets in Bristol
and Cheltenham.
Her meticulous, detailed style was in the tradition of the
English school of topographical watercolour painting, with
delicate pencil drawing overlaid with transparent washes of
colour. Unusually, she made explicit visual references to
war: the aftermath of a bombing raid, in Catherine Place,
Bath; barrage balloons in London skies; and khaki-clad
soldiers strolling along the promenade in Cheltenham.
Ginger was born in New Malden, Surrey, and educated at
Tiffin school for girls in Kingston-upon-Thames. An abortive
career in the civil service was succeeded by three years,
from 1932, at Richmond School of Art, where she was taught
by Stanley Badmin, a noted watercolourist who also worked
for the Recording Britain project. This training was
supplemented by her evening classes at the Central School of
Arts and Crafts. At 30, she won a scholarship and became a
full-time student there.
Her ambition was to be an illustrator, which entailed
classes in printmaking. She exhibited an etching, Portrait
Of My Father Reading, at the Royal Academy in 1938, and was
elected to the Senefelder club, a group of
artist-lithographers, in 1939.
She also joined the Allied International Artists (AIA)
group. While she was a student, she was commissioned to
paint a watercolour of the new Chelsea bridge, then under
construction.
Work that she did concurrently with Recording Britain
included Chimps At The Zoo, published in 1940 in the
affordable Everyman series by the AIA, and watercolour
illustrations to Mrs Robert Henrey's A Farm In Normandy
(1941); this began a collaboration with Henrey that lasted
more than 30 years, and led to several books about London.
She also wrote and illustrated a children's book, Alexander,
The Circus Pony (1943).
She returned to London in 1946, and in 1947 made both a
colour lithograph, Town Centre, for the popular School
Prints series, and illustrations for Joan Lamburn's book,
The Mushroom Pony.
Ginger was committed to watercolour, which suited her light
and lively style, and in 1952 was elected to the Royal
Society of Painters in Watercolours; she exhibited with them
for the rest of her life. After she renewed interest in
etching, she installed a press in her Kew home.
Her husband died this year (obituary, March 1); she leaves a
son and daughter.
· Phyllis Ethel Ginger, artist and illustrator, born October
19 1907; died May 3 2005