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Anna Airy

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English painter and etcher

Anna Airy
Born(1882-06-06)6 June 1882
Greenwich, London, England
Died23 October 1964(1964-10-23) (aged 82)
Greenwich, London, England
EducationSlade School of Fine Art
Known forPainting, Pastel, Etching
SpouseGeoffrey Buckingham Pocock

Anna Airy (6 June 1882 – 23 October 1964) was an English oil painter, pastel artist and etcher. She was one of the first women officially commissioned as a war artist and was recognised as one of the leading women artists of her generation.

Early life

Airy was born in Greenwich, London, the daughter of an engineer, Wilfrid Airy, and Anna née Listing, and the granddaughter of the Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy. Airy trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1899 to 1903, where she studied alongside William Orpen and Augustus John, and under Fred Brown, Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer. Airy won prizes at the Slade School for portrait, figure, and other subjects including the Slade School Scholarship in 1902. She also won the Melville Nettleship Prize in 1900, 1901 and 1902.

Work

interior view from an elevated position showing the shop-floor of an aircraft assembly factory. The aircraft are seen in various stages of assembly to the left and right of the image. In the centre are lines of workbenches and a range of different factory personnel
An Aircraft Assembly Shop, Hendon
interior view of a gasworks showing the retort process. Several women dressed in dark overalls stand at work on the floor of the gasworks. The focal point is the clouds of grey smoke and yellow flames emitted from the wall on the left of the painting
Women Working in a Gas Retort House - South Metropolitan Gas Company, London

During World War I, Airy was given commissions in a number of factories and painted her canvases on site in often difficult and, sometimes, dangerous conditions. For example, while working at great speed to paint A Shell Forge at a National Projectile Factory, Hackney Marshes, London in an extremely hot environment, "the ground became so hot that her shoes were burnt off her feet". This painting was featured in an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum's 2011–2012 exhibition Women War Artists.

In June 1918 the Munitions Committee of the Imperial War Museum, IWM. commissioned her to create four paintings representing typical scenes in four munitions factories: These included,

  • National Projectile Factory at Hackney;
  • National Filling Factory at Chilwell, Nottingham, W G Armstrong Whitworth's at Nottingham;
  • Aircraft Manufacturing Co. at Hendon;
  • South Metropolitan Gas Co.

The Chilwell commission was replaced by a request for a painting of work at the Singer factory in Glasgow. Airy was also commissioned by the Women's Work Section of the IWM during the war. In 1917 she was commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Fund; and in 1940 by the Ministry of Munitions. Her work was also part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics.

Airy was married to the artist Geoffrey Buckingham Pocock and for many years the couple lived at Haverstock Hill in Hampstead before moving to Playford near Ipswich.

Exhibitions

Airy's work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1905 and in each subsequent year there until 1956, her first one-woman exhibition having been held at the Carfax Gallery in 1908. Airy also exhibited at exhibitions at the Paris Salon and in Italy, Canada and in the United States. She has been represented in the British Museum; the Victoria and Albert Museum; and the Imperial War Museum. Her work also appeared in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney as well as in Auckland, New Zealand; Vancouver and Ottawa in Canada; and in the Corporation Art Galleries of Liverpool, Leeds, Huddersfield, Birkenhead, Blackpool, Rochdale, Ipswich, Doncaster, Lincoln, Harrogate, Paisley and Newport. A painting by Airy, The Golden Plum Tree, shown at a 1916 exhibition of works by female artists was acquired by Queen Mary. Her etching Forerunners of Fruit (c.1925) is in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Publications

Airy is the author of:

  • The Art of Pastel (1930) London: Winsor & Newton
  • Making a Start in Art (1951) Studio Publications London, New York

Memberships

Airy was a member of several artistic societies. She was elected as a member of The Pastel Society in 1906. She also joined the Royal Society of Painters and Etchers in 1908 when the society elected her. She was also an elected member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (1909), Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (1918), and Member of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts (1952). She was elected as the President of the Ipswich Art Society in 1945.

References

  1. ^ Arifa Akbar (8 April 2011). "Women at war: The female British artists who were written out of history". The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  2. Tolson, Roger. "Art and Daily Life in World War Two". BBC History. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
  3. Goward, K. J. (2006). "Founding of Orwell Park Observatory". Institute of Astronomy. Archived from the original on 15 November 2007. Retrieved 16 December 2007.
  4. "Anna Airy". Thompson's Gallery. Archived from the original on 19 July 2012.
  5. ^ Who Was Who, 'AIRY, Anna' A & C Black, 1920–2008 (online ed.). Oxford University Press. December 2007. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
  6. ^ Richard Green (1995). Modern British Paintings (Exhibition Catalogue). Richard Green Gallery.
  7. ^ "A Shell Forge at a National Projectile Factory, Hackney Marshes, London, 1918". Imperial War Museum. Archived from the original on 8 November 2021. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  8. "Women War Artists". Imperial War Museum. 2011. Archived from the original on 7 March 2014. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  9. "Miss Anna Airy". Imperial War Museum. Archived from the original on 28 July 2018. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  10. "An Aircraft Assembly Shop, Hendon". Imperial War Museum. Archived from the original on 8 November 2021. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  11. "6 Stunning First World War Artworks by Women War Artists". Imperial War Museum. Archived from the original on 17 July 2022. Retrieved 1 April 2017.
  12. "Anna Airy". Olympedia. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  13. Lucy Meretto Peterson (2018). The Women Who Inspired London Art, The Avico Sisters and Other Models of the Early 20th Century. Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-5267-2525-7.
  14. "Collection: Anna Airy". Art Gallery NSW. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012.
  15. "Airy, Anna." Chambers Biographical Dictionary. London: Chambers Harrap, 2007. Credo Reference. Web. 25 March 2010
  16. ^ Frances Spalding (1990). 20th Century Painters and Sculptors. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1-85149-106-6.
  17. Sara Gray (2009). The Dictionary of British Women Artists. The Lutterworth Press. ISBN 97807-18830847.

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