Forthcoming

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)

Go Shell, proposed design for Shell petrol. c.1937 [HMO 751]

SKU: 6365
Oil on board
12 x 8¼ in. (31 x 21 cm)

Size:
Height – 31cm
Width – 21cm

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
Roger Folley; Alasdair Dunbar; Hammer Mill Oast Collection
Presentation:
framed
Exhibited: Evelyn Dunbar – The Lost Works, Pallant House Gallery, October 2015 – February 2016.

Literature: Evelyn Dunbar – The Lost Works, Sacha Llewellyn & Paul Liss, July 2015, cat. 84page 126-127.

Dunbar was possibly commissioned in the 1930s to produce original commercial publicity material, as Freedman, Ravilious and others were, but nothing further is known of her designs for Shell. There is no record of Dunbar being commissioned by Shell to produce original publicity material.
The Children’s Shop & Commercial Design

Shop window of The Children’s Shop
on Rochester High Street.

There was clearly a strong entrepreneurial streak in the Dunbar family. In December 1938 an article in The Chatham News proclaimed that Although today there are half-a-dozen flourishing businesses associated under the name Dunbar, the family was unknown in Strood when the twentieth century was born.’ 
William, Evelyn’s father, had come south from Scotland some time in the latter years of the nineteenth century, first to Reading and then briefly to Bournemouth before finally setting up in business as a bespoke tailor and draper in Rochester, Kent, the archaeologist’s and the historian’s heaven’ as Richard Church described it. 
During the interwar years as the Dunbar children grew to 
maturity the name became ubiquitous in Rochester High Street: Evelyn’s brother Ronald branched out into radios and bicycles while two of her sisters, Jessie and Marjorie, opened The Children’s Shop. For several years the living accommodation above this shop at 244 High Street was also the family home until William bought The Cedars across the Medway at Strood.
Jessie and Marjorie were only one year apart in age, they never married and were like
twins living for each other happy in themselves, delighting in their work dressing small
children, and firm in their in their adherence to the Christian Science faith in which their mother had reared them. They established The Children’s Shop soon after the end of World War I and Evelyn, though still in her early teens was happy to help. Even when her commitments at the Royal College of Art and Brockley shifted the focus of her activity to London, she continued to assist designing headed notepaper (CAT 79) and other stationery (CAT 77), lettering publicity panels and painting the delightful signboard for the shop with its frolicking mice and sparrows (CAT 76).
In 1938, some eighteen years after opening The Children’s Shop, the two sisters
expanded their business interests when they took over a well-established haberdashery
further down the High Street, including, according to a notice in The Chatham News, its stock of rare silks: they renamed it The Fancy Shop. Their brother Ronald’s business
had by then expanded to such an extent that he took over Strood Hall and in December
that year advertised a Home Comfort Exhibition and a Miniature Radiolympia with:
TELEVISION, FREE DEMONSTRATION DAILY: FURNITURE, a representative selection of the most up-to-date and attractive styles for Bedroom, Dining Room and Sitting
Room: CHILDRENS WEAR and TOYS: Knitting Wools, ART NEEDLEWORK and Fancy
Goods’. The gros point panel Opportunity (CAT 75) embroidered in wools from The
Fancy Shop and copied from a 1936 painting by Evelyn might well have been one of the
pieces of Art Needlework included in this display.
With the opening of The Fancy Shop at 168 High Street Evelyn took over the first floor
to show paintings and items of antique furniture; she named her department the Blue
Gallery and in March 1939 staged an ambitious exhibition of work by friends including
Charles Mahoney, Allan Gwynne-Jones, Kenneth Rowntree and Edward Bawden as
well as sculpture by Bainbridge Copnall. However, with war looming on the horizon,
times were not propitious and the gallery soon closed and Evelyn found employment as
an Official War Artist. The Christian Science Reading Room took over the vacant space
in The Children’s Shop under the care of Jessie and Marjorie. 
Peyton Skipwith
Disclaimer:
Liss Llewellyn are continually seeking to improve the quality of the information on their website. We actively undertake to post new and more accurate information on our stable of artists. We openly acknowledge the use of information from other sites including Wikipedia, artbiogs.co.uk and Tate.org and other public domains. We are grateful for the use of this information and we openly invite any comments on how to improve the accuracy of what we have posted.

THE ARTIST

Evelyn Dunbar
Evelyn
Dunbar
1906 - 1960

Evelyn Dunbar studied at Rochester School of Art, Chelsea School
of Art (1927) and the Royal College of Art (1929’33). She painted
murals from 1933 -36 at Brockley School, a collaboration with her
RCA tutor (and lover) Cyril Mahoney (1903’1968) and in 1937
they wrote and illustrated together Gardeners’ Choice. 

In 1938 she set up the Blue Gallery in Rochester, exhibiting her
own work alongside that of Edward Bawden (1903’1989) and
Barnett Freedman (1901’1958) and others. In 1940 she was
appointed an official war artist, becoming the only woman (amongst
36 men) to be given a full time salaried position by the WAAC. 

She held her only solo exhibition at Withersdane, Wye, Kent
in 1953, although the WAAC included numerous pieces in touring
exhibitions ranging from Aberdeen Art Gallery to MOMA, New York. 

A posthumous exhibition was held in 2006 at St Barbe
Museum and Art Gallery, and in 2015 Liss Llewellyn mounted a
major retrospective of her recently rediscovered studio at Pallant
House Gallery. 

MORE PICTURES BY ARTIST

Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Allegory of Painting, c. 1935
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
August, c. 1937
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Mural Roundel, 1933-1936
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Parlement of Foules, 1933-1936
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Gadshill House,1937
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for personification of June for Country Life 1938 Gardener’s Diary, subsequently not used.
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Roses From Our Garden, Nov. 3rd 1926′
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for Hospital Train
£3,950
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Shall We Gather by the River, c. 1925
£2,950
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Industry and Sloth, c.1932
£5,750
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Clara Cowling gardening, circa 1928
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Invitation to the Garden, circa 1938
£14,000
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Felbridge, circa 1926
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Self-portrait, c.1927
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Waternymphomania, circa 1928
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
RCA Sketch Club Summer Camp, 1930
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Pencil sketch for Portrait of an Airwoman, 1944
£1,500
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait of an Unidentified Man, c.1925
£1,750
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketch for the dust cover for A Farm Dictionary (Derek Chapman, Evans Brothers, London, 1953
£575
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Conservatory at the Cedars
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
A diagrammatic explanation of trenching or double digging
£1,750
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Seated Model with Hairstyle ‘à la poissarde’, circa 1931
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
An Artist at His Easel (probably Robert Lyon), late 1920s
£2,750
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies and sketches for Putting on Anti-Gas Protective Clothing, 1940
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of Leaves, 1930’s
£1,475
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Artist at Her Drawing Board, mid-1920s
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
August, 1937
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of vignettes for Country Life, 1938
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Joseph’s Dream, 1938
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Garden at the Elms, Winter, 1956
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
December for the Country Life 1938 Gardeners Diary
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Design for June for the Country Life 1938 Gardeners Diary
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Design for unused title page of Gardener’s Choice, circa 1936
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study of a figure gardening possibly for Gardener’s Diary
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study of a young unidentified woman looking into a mirror.
£900
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Woman Selling Watermelon Slices, West Indies
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Joseph in Prison, 1949-50
£22,000
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for July, Gardeners Diary 1938, 1937
£1,850
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Drawing of Cyclamen neapolitanum and Cyclamen Coüm for Gardeners’ Choice, 1937
£900
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study II for designs for an embroidered quilt [HMO 689]
£2,500
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Self-portrait, [HMO 766], 1958
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been [HMO 333]
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study I for designs for an embroidered quilt [HMO 689]
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Three sketchbooks
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies for Mercatora, an allegorical painting (whereabouts unknown) [HMO 173]
£2,500
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Dorset, 1947-1948
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Jacobs Dream, 1960
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Men Stooking and Girls Learning to Stook. 1940
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study at Sparsholt Farm Institute for A Land Girl and the Bail Bull, 1944 [HMO 40]
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Singling Turnips, 1943
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Seven Days
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
April,1937
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Woodcutter and the Bees, spring 1933 [HMO 309]
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sacking Potatoes, 1948
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Colour study for sub-gallery spandrels at Brockley County School for Boys [HMO 551]
£2,350
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Dunbar family in the Garden at The Cedars, Spring (Version 1), c.1928 (HMO 75)
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait of the artists mother, Florence, on a bentwood rocking chair, c.1930 [HMO 797]
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Go Shell, proposed design for Shell petrol. c.1937 [HMO 751]
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Land Workers at Strood, c. 1938
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Childrens Shop: mice (recto), birds (verso) [HMO 749]
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sleeping Beauty, 10 minute sketch, c.1928 (HMO 786)
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Milking Practice with Artificial Udders, 1940
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Autumn and the Poet, 1948-1960
Reserved
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait of the artist Margaret Goodwin
£2,200