Evelyn Dunbar (1906–1960)

Evelyn Dunbar was born in Reading, Berkshire, England, to the family of a draper and tailor. She won a scholarship to the Rochester Grammar School for Girls,and went on to study at the Rochester School of Art (now the University for the Creative Arts) from 1925 to 1927, and at the Chelsea School of Art from 1927 to 1929. In 1929, she won a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art, graduating ARCA (Associate of the Royal College of Art) in 1933. Evelyn and a small group of fourth-year Royal College of Art students were commissioned to decorate the assembly hall of the Brockley County Secondary School (now Prendergast-Hilly Fields College) in south London with a series of murals illustrating Aesop's fables. Also in the group was Charles Mahoney, Evelyn's former art tutor. She and Mahoney spent most of the years 1933 to 1936 completing the Brockley murals. During this time they became companions and lovers, a relationship that ended in 1937. A collection of Evelyn's often lavishly illustrated letters to Mahoney are held in the Tate Gallery archive. In 1937, she published Gardeners' Choice, written and illustrated along with Mahoney. It was well received by the public and ran to three editions.
Evelyn is most notable for recording women's contributions to World War II on the English home front, particularly the work of the Women's Land Army, as the only woman working full-time for the War Artists' Advisory Committee. After the war she painted landscapes, portraits, and allegorical pictures.