Gwyneth Johnstone facts for kids

Gwyneth Johnstone (born June 18, 1915 – died December 8, 2010) was an English painter. She was known for her oil paintings, especially landscapes that showed people in modern settings, starting in the 1950s. Gwyneth studied art at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Her paintings were shown in art galleries in the United Kingdom and other countries from the 1960s to the late 2000s.

About Gwyneth Johnstone

Gwyneth Johnstone was born on June 18, 1915, in Coltishall, a village in Norfolk, England. She often kept her exact birth date a secret. Gwyneth's mother was a musician named Nora Brownsford, and her father was the famous artist Augustus John. Her mother gave her the last name Johnstone, which came from a teacher in Alderney. Gwyneth grew up in Norwich and London, and she didn't have a close relationship with her father.

Gwyneth faced challenges because her parents were not married. Some of her half-sisters didn't like her, and society sometimes made fun of her. She went to the Saint Felix School in Southwold. There, she saw paintings by Christopher Wood and other modern artists. The school's headteacher, Lucy Mary Silcox, had bought these artworks.

Art School and Training

From March 1933 to June 1938, Gwyneth studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. She found it tough at first. While there, she became lifelong friends with other artists like Mary Fedden and Virginia Parsons. In her last year, she focused on painting for stages and decorations.

After Slade, Gwyneth learned about a style called "academic cubism" from the painter André Lhote at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. In the early 1950s, she also took classes with the surrealist artist Cecil Collins at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.

Showing Her Art

Gwyneth Johnstone's artwork was part of several art groups. These included Young Contemporaries, The London Group, and the Women's International Art Club. She even became a vice-president of the Women's International Art Club.

Her first solo art show was at the Woodstock Gallery in 1960. After that, she had many shows at the Portal Gallery. Her art was also shown in other countries. A writer for The Guardian newspaper, Tanya Herrod, said that Gwyneth's art might have seemed very different from what was popular at the time. However, her work became popular again with many solo shows from the 1980s onwards. These included galleries like the New Grafton Art Gallery in 1983, Sally Hunter & Patrick Seale Fine Art in 1985, Michael Parkin Fine Art in 1993, and the School House Gallery in Wighton (near Wells-next-the-Sea) in 2007. Gwyneth Johnstone passed away in Coltishall on December 8, 2010.

Gwyneth's Personal Life

Gwyneth Johnstone never married. She had a relationship with a pianist named Francis Davies from the 1940s until he died in 2008. She owned homes in the South of France and later in the hills of Benidorm, Spain. A friend described Gwyneth as "a really lovely lady" who lived a free-spirited life.