Nora Drummond

Nora Drummond (29 December 1862-18 December 1949), also known as Nora Drummond-Davis, was an English, and later Canadian, artist and illustrator, whose work typically featured dogs and country pursuits.

Life

Nora Georgina Drummond was born in Bath, Somerset, England in 1862, the second of fourteen children of John Joseph Drummond (1832/3-1898) and Elizabeth Hardy (b. 1840).^[1] She was a member of an artistic family, her father being a former Master of the Bath School of Art and Design and an art tutor to the Royal Family, and her mother the daughter of the artist James Hardy (1801-1879). Her maternal uncle, James Hardy junior (1832-1889) was a painter of rustic landscapes and hunting scenes, who exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and the British Institution.^[2] Another uncle, Hayward (or Heywood) Hardy (1842-1933) was also an artist, specialising in animals and landscapes.^[3] Her great-uncle George Frederick Hardy (b. 1796) was a court musician to King William IV and Queen Victoria and two of his sons, George Hardy (1822-1909) and Frederick Daniel Hardy (1827-1911) were artists and members of the Cranbrook Colony.^[4] In 1893 Drummond married Daniel Joseph F. Davies (1870-1948) and shortly after the turn of the century the couple emigrated to Canada, where at least three of Drummond’s siblings joined them. For some years they lived in Alberta, where Nora Drummond-Davies, as she had become known, provided private lessons in painting and illustration to Peter Whyte, who later, with his wife, (see Peter and Catharine Whyte) became the inspiration for The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff, Alberta.^[5]

Works

Although Drummond was working as an artist prior to the end of the 19th century, (she is described as such in the 1891 and 1901 censuses), the aspect of her work most widely encountered comprises the illustrations, often featuring dogs and country pursuits, she produced for Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd., a British publishing company with interests in the USA and Canda, well known before World War II for its extensive range of art postcards.^[6] Her younger sister, Eileen Drummond (b. 1884) also provided illustrations for Tuck postcards.

After her marriage she continued to sign her work “N. Drummond”.

References

1. ^ Source: UK censuses and parish records
2. ^ http://www.burlington.co.uk/artist-biography/james-hardy-jr.html
3. ^ http://www.allartclassic.com/author_biography.php?p_number=161
4. ^ http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/collections/browse_collections/art/cranbrook/index.html?sid=\\\\\\
5. ^ http://www.where.ca/canadianrockies/article_feature.cfm?listing_id=40
6. ^ http://www.henrywimbush.co.uk/id20.htm