Percy Horton (1897-1970):
Joan Jenner/Rhoades reading, circa 1925
Framed (ref: 4195)
Signed with studio stamp on reverse (2/26)
Oil on canvas, 20 1/8 x 24 in. (51 x 61 cm.)
See all works by Percy Horton oil portraits reading women HORTON
Geoffrey
Rhoades married Joan Jenner in the mid 1930's. They met at a
Royal College Ball. Although Geoffrey studied at the Slade (more
prestigeous than the College at the time) one of his intimate friends,
Percy Horton, was at the College. Geoffrey, Percy, his wife Lydia and
Joan became very close friends until the end of their lives. Joan came
from Lewes in Sussex, was very intelligent, only not experiencing
university education because her divorced parents could not afford it.
She made a distinguished career as a secretary, her final appointment
being as secretary to the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art,
University of Oxford with Percy Horton as Ruskin Master. Geoffrey also
taught there as has their son Peter who was born in 1938. Joan died in
2002, aged 97, in the house in Cuddington which she had shared with
Geoffrey and subsequently with Peter, his wife his second wife Jane and their two
children.