Rosemary west decorative painter biography examples

The biography (below) is taken from the Zwemmer Gallery exhibition catalogue for their (September / October) 1958 exhibition Harlold Cheesman, John Verney, Rosemary Grimble, where Grimble exhibited twenty ink drawings (catalogue nos. 48 to 67)

"Rosemary Grimble was born and lived for nearly four years on Tarawa in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. She was educated mainly in France and the West Indies and commenced her art training at the Central School of Arts, London where she studied for three years, afterwards taking a job as a typographer and layout artist. Later she became Art Editor of Housewife then assiatant Art Editor of Picture Post, at the same time doing freelance work as an illustrator.

In August 1944 she left London to rejoin her parents in the West Indies, where her father, Sir Arthur Grimble KCMG, who became famous following the publication of his book A Patter of Islands, was at that time Governor of the Windward Islands.

Rosemary Grimble left the West Indies in September 1948, spending a month in New York on the way home. From 1948 to 1956 she lived in Italy, Malta, South of France, London and Cyprus, and during this time continued drawing, illustrating books and writing. She is married to Adrian Seligman who is also a writer and they live at present in Wimbledon."

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Rosemary Grimble's books include:

Jonothan and Large, Published by André Deutschin (1965)
Migrations, Myth and Magic From The Gilbert Islands, Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul Books (1972)
The Thief Catcher and Other Stories from Ethiopia, Published by André Deutsch Ltd (1974)

Rosemary Grimble died in London on 22nd April 2013

2024 Lise Lorentzen September Seminar

2024 Bobbie Takashima April Seminar - Canceled due to Deaths in the family

Bobbie says that a love of art has been a part of her since early childhood when she tagged along with her mother to paint classes. She had her first formal class in 1960 and has studied with many decorative artists since. She opened Country Keepsakes Folk Art Studio in 1985 where she and nationally recognized teachers conduct seminars and classes. Bobbie has authored several painting books, numerous magazine articles and more than a hundred pattern packets. When not tra

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As a child, she stared at Saturday Evening Post covers; later, she studied the original drawings of Beatrix Potter. Rosemary Wells talks about the nuts and bolts, as well as the gifts, of illustration and, indeed, of all the arts.

Interview by Will Hillenbrand

Born in New York City, Rosemary Wells abandoned art school and its emphasis on Abstract Expressionism to work in book design before creating Voyage To The Bunny Planet. In addition to her wise and funny stories whose cast of characters consists entirely of animals, she has written Red Moon at Sharpsburg (2007), a historical novel featuring a young girl in the American Civil War.

WILL HILLENBRAND (WH): Here on stage at the Mazza Museum at the University of Findlay, surrounded by the original drawings for books like Bunny Money, Max & Ruby series, Noisy Nora, Stella’s Starliner, Sophie’s Terrible Twos, and Yoko, I find I have so many questions. I’ll start with this: When did you discover your talent or how did it emerge to become an awareness: “This is who I am.”

ROSEMARY WELLS (RW): Forever is the answer. I was 2, 2½ when I started to draw recognizable figures. This was before I could talk or even wear clothing properly. I remember or think I remember that people would see what this 2-year-old was doing with a pencil or a crayon, and they would say, “Woah!” I learned that I could do something that was unexpected and positive.

My family was in the arts: father, playwright; mother, ballet dancer. They were both very good at what they did, and they had a great many associates and friends who were in the art

“I don’t know when I realized I wanted to be a children’s writer. I wrote the stories I wanted to write. It happens to be the voice I have.” Rosemary Wells’s voice is Max who desperately wants a dragon shirt instead of a new pair of pants; it’s also Edward who’s afraid to take off his water wings at a swim party or go to pre-school; it’s Yoko whose friends tease her about the sushi in her lunch box; and it’s Shy Charles who trembles at the thought of meeting other children.

Wells comes from a family devoted to the arts. Her mother danced for the Russian Ballet and her father was a playwright and an actor. She remembers her house being “filled with books, dogs and 19th century music. ..When I was two years old I began to draw and my family saw right away the career that lay ahead of me and encouraged me every day of my life. As far back as I can remember, I did nothing but draw.”

Now, Wells writes or draws eight hours a day. The ideas and images for her picture books come to her “out of the sky.” She’s an experienced eavesdropper, picking up tid-bits of conversations and trivia from every day life that she uses in her stories. “It’s a writer’s job to have ideas; without them I wouldn’t be much of a writer. I structure my stories around the things that make up our lives.” Wells’s daughters, Victoria and Beezoo (Marguerite) are Ruby and Max, two of Wells’s most popular characters. “They appeared on my drawing board in the summer of 1977.” At age five, Victoria decided to explain the world to her nine month old baby sister. Victoria dragged Beezoo around “like a sack of flour. . .shouting, ‘Table, Beezoo! say table. TA-BLE!’ Beezoo did not cooperate at all and was always off in a world of her own.”

Wells’s lifelong love of history and its characters comes through in Tallchief: Prima Ballerina (Viking, 1999), Streets of Gold (Dial, 1999), and Mary on Horseback (Dial, 1998). Wells scrupulously researched the three American heroines: Mar