[Gill Clarke, 'Evelyn Dunbar, War and Country' ("Sansom & Company Ltd. 2006")] . An enthusiastic gardener and plants woman, she collaborated with Mahoney to write and illustrate "Gardeners’ Choice" ("Routledge, 1937"). [Mahoney's name here appears as ‘Cyril’. This has to be an adopted name variation for pseudonym publication purposes] Routledge had already noted the potential of Evelyn Dunbar as illustrator when she added delightful little pen and ink chapter motifs to a miscellany “The Scots Weekend and Caledonian Vade-Mecum for Host, Guest and Wayfarer” a 'culural Scots holiday guide' edited by Donald and Catherine Carswell "(1936)". ]A later collaborative publication was "A Book of Farmcraft" "(Longmans, 1942)" with Michael Greenhill, a recruiter of Land Army girls at Sparsholt training centre "(now Sparsholt College, Hampshire)" out of which Evelyn Dunbar's 'official war paintings' issued.
In 1942 Evelyn Dunbar married a Royal Air Force auxiliary operative Roger Folley who was engaged during and after World War II as an agricultural economist. A lecturing position precipitated "Mr. Folley" to Wye Agricultural College in the early 1950s "(now "Imperial College at Wye", Kent)" which is to be presently closed due to student shortfall in ‘university agricultural subjects’. "(Roger Folley died age 95 after a short illness Aug. 2008)." The marriage was childless, but the couple became foster parents in the mid to late 1950s, fostering first one young boy then an adolescent during school holiday periods. The boys came from The Caldecott Community, a residential school for 'the maladjusted' founded by Leila Rendel and Phyllis Potter in 1911. They named what was initially a nursery after Randolph Caldecott a renowned Victorian illustrator of children's stories and rhymes. At the time of Evelyn Dunbar's "(Mrs Folley's)" fostering of the boys ‘The Caldecott’ was situated across a four mile stretch of the Wealden plain from the Folley's 'Staple Farm' home atop the North Downs at Hastingleigh, Kent. Both 'homes' had a direct aspect upon the other.
The glorious finale of Leila’s Kent "(a county she proclaimed "Alma Mater")" big-house leases culminated with residency in a Robert Adam mansion in 1945; after British army World War II requisitioning of such prominent houses returned them to landed owners; was set in recognisable Georgian period grounds which overlooked an obligatory landscaped; therefore contrived; laked parkland. Mersham-le-Hatch "(frequently shortened 'Mersham Hatch' - See Baron Brabourne)" being sold as a commercial venture "(c.2004)" was formerly the ancestral seat of the Huguenot Knatchbull family which bought of its earlier dynastic period into The County of Kent much nobility; but; not so great notability where Scott’s Hall is compared with Mersham Hatch which is documented in lowlier repute "(Refer to The Ingoldsby Legends; Thomas Ingoldsby 1840" "also John Scott of Scott's Hall and William Scott of Scott's Hall)." It was at 'Hatch' "(even more shortened by 'the maladjusted')" in the late 1950s ‘Mrs Folley’ visited her two foster boys. "(Leila M. Rendel was also a founder of Gordonstoun School, Scotland at which English royals attended as well as selected of a small trail of Leila’s talented; if nondescript; boy Caldecott’s.)"
In 1956 "‘ED’" "(as she tended to sign her paintings from an initial fuller scripted ‘tag’)" accepted an invitation to paint two commemorative murals for the library at Bletchley Teacher Training College, Buckinghamshire. The murals were based on Evelyn Dunbar's interpretation of the College emblem being a ‘horn and alpha within omega symbolism'. This referenced the College motto “In my end is my beginning”. The 'Alpha boy interpretation' portrayed in one of the Bletchley murals is almost certainly modelled from the younger of Evelyn Dunbar's fosterings of a boy from The Caldecott Community. Bletchley Teacher Training College is now closed and 'The Bletchley Murals' have been re-positioned to Oxford Brookes University. Since the murals may in part depict Bletchley Park's contribution to 'the war effort' the transposed mural(s) from a defunct local authority site might; arguably; have been offered most pertinently to Bletchley Park proper rather than to a, perhaps, 'non-relevant Oxfordshire trustee'. Evelyn Dunbar, a Christian Scientist, continued to receive commissions for portraiture and landscape painting up to her sudden and untimely death aged 54; occurring; while she was out strolling with her husband on the North Downs combe below their home in Hastingleigh, Kent.
Evelyn Dunbar’s paintings, drawings and other artwork are held by The Imperial War Museum, Tate Britain, Arts Council of Great Britain, Cambridgeshire County Council, UK Government Art Collection, Wye Agricultural College, Kent (now merged into Imperial College London), Manchester Art Gallery, Oxford Brookes University, the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum in Bournemouth, the Tullie House Museum as well as by private individuals in Britain and abroad.
An Evelyn Dunbar retrospective at the St. Barbe Museum & Art Gallery Lymington, Hampshire in November 2006 coincided with the publication of Dr. Gill Clarke's "Evelyn Dunbar - War & Country". Dr. Gill Clarke further curates a second exhibition entitled "The Women's Land Army - A Portrait" ["The Women's Land Army - A Portrait"] complementing a new publication of the same name at the St. Barbe Museum & Art Gallery Lymington, Hampshire 18th October 2008-10th January 2009. Gallery talks are scheduled for 7th November and 5th December. Tickets £3. Link: http://www.stbarbe-museum.org.uk/exhibitions/index.html
References
1. ^ Dr. Gill Clarke, MBE: "Evelyn Dunbar, War and Country" "(Sansom & Company Ltd. 2006)"
2. ^ Mahoney's name here appears as ‘Cyril’. This has to be an adopted name variation for pseudonym publication purposes.
3. ^ Dr. Gill Clarke, MBE: "The Women's Land Army - A Portrait" "(Sansom & Company Ltd. 2008)"
External links
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Mary_Dunbar
St. Barbe Museum: http://www.stbarbe-museum.org.uk/features/Evelyn-Dunbar/evelyn-dunbar-1.html
University of Southampton: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/41483/
Woman’s hour: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04/2006_44_fri.shtml
1. Sansom & Company publishers of 'Evelyn Dunbar – War & Country 2006' http://www.sansomandcompany.co.uk/inprint.html and
2. The Women's Land Army - A Portrait 2008: http://www.sansomandcompany.co.uk/new.html both authored by Dr. Gill Clarke MBE.
Amazon Books: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Evelyn-Dunbar-Country-Gill-Clarke/dp/1904537561
Liss Fine Art: http://www.evelyndunbar.com/
1. Tate Britain: http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=1041
2. Tate Britain: https://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/apictureofbritain/works/south_dunbar_landgirl.shtm
3. Tate Learning: http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/schools/evelyndunbar3866.shtm
The Caldecott Foundation "(formerly “The Caldecott Community”):" http://www.caldecottfoundation.co.uk/
Therapeutic Communities for Children and Young People by Adrian Ward: http://books.google.com/books?id=dL2MFKWUajAC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=Leila+Rendell&source=web&ots=GZzdj6J-NK&sig=FCtrc_wrtm7rImBJEsbgcZYm4nY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
1. PETT "(Planned Environment Therapy Trust)" Archive and Study Centre - holds The Caldecott Association "(Caldecott Community)" archive: http://www.pettarchiv.org.uk/archive.htm
2. http://www.pettrust.org.uk/grant/index.php/Volunteers_and_the_Volunteering_Experience
Art Cyclopedia: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/dunbar_evelyn.html
Socialist Worker: http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=9641
The-artists.org: http://the-artists.org/artist/Evelyn_Dunbar.html
BNET: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAL/is_544_165/ai_n27275770
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/101063781/
