Sheila Robinson (1925–1988) was a British artist and illustrator, one of the

Great Bardfield Artists {{Use British English, date=July 2015 The Great Bardfield Artists were a community of artists who lived in Great Bardfield, a village in north west Essex, England, during the middle years of the 20th century. The principal artists who lived t ...

and a member of staff at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

. After her death, the RCA created the Sheila Robinson Drawing Prize in her honour.

Biography

Sheila Robinson was born in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...

in 1925. She studied at the

Nottingham School of Art Founded in 1843, the School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University is one of the oldest in the United Kingdom. History In 1836, the Government Select Committee on Art and Manufactures produced a report highlighting concerns about the s ...

and at the Royal College of Art, where she was a student of

Edward Bawden Edward Bawden, (10 March 1903 – 21 November 1989) was an English painter, illustrator and graphic artist, known for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture. Bawden taught at the Royal College of Art, where he had be ...

. One of her RCA projects was a complete, hand-drawn, lettered and bound book, ''The Twelve Dancing Princesses''. She married Bernard Cheese and moved to

Thaxted Thaxted is a town and civil parish in the Uttlesford district of north-west Essex, England. The town is in the valley of the River Chelmer, not far from its source in the nearby village of Debden, and is 97 metres (318 feet) above sea level (w ...

, Essex, to raise their two children, one of whom is illustrator and printmaker Chloe Cheese. The marriage broke down, and she and the children moved to

Great Bardfield Great Bardfield is a large village in the Braintree District, Braintree district of Essex, England. It is approximately northwest of the town of Braintree, Essex, Braintree, and approximately southeast of Saffron Walden. The village came to ...

in Essex, where she worked as part of a team with Edward Bawden on the

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Labour Party cabinet member Herbert Morrison was the prime mover; in 1947 he started with the ...

. She worked on a number of commercial commissions - advertising posters, including for BBC publications such as ''Time and Tune'' and the ''BBC Book of the Countryside''. Robinson created several posters for London Transport in the early 1950s, including ''Literary London'' and ''Tattoo''. She then taught at the Royal College of Art, and developed her work in printmaking and card-cut illustration. She was also one of the artists who contributed to ''The Oxford Illustrated Old Testament'' in the 1960s (along with

Edward Ardizzone Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, (16 October 1900 – 8 November 1979), who sometimes signed his work "DIZ", was a British painter, printmaker and war artist, and the author and illustrator of books, many of them for children. For ''Tim All Al ...

, Peter Blake, John Brathy,

Edward Burra Edward John Burra CBE (29 March 1905 – 22 October 1976) was an English painter, draughtsman, and printmaker, best known for his depictions of the urban underworld, Black culture and the Harlem scene of the 1930s. Biography Early life Burra ...

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...

Carel Weight Carel Victor Morlais Weight, (10 September 1908 – 13 August 1997) was an English painter. Biography Weight was born in Paddington in 1908. His father was a bank cashier and his mother, who was of Swedish and German descent, was a chirop ...

and

Brian Wildsmith Brian Lawrence Wildsmith (22 January 1930 – 31 August 2016) was a British painter and children's book illustrator. He won the 1962 Kate Greenaway Medal for British children's book illustration, for the wordless alphabet book ''ABC''. In all h ...

. She died of a brain tumour in Saffron Walden in 1988.

Works

* Illustrations for the boxed edition of D.H. Lawrence's ''Sons and Lovers'' (Limited Editions Club of New York, 1975) * Illustrations for ''The Oxford Illustrated Old Testament'', 1960s * Illustrations for the ''Festival of Britain''.

The Sheila Robinson Drawing Prize

This prize was established in her honour at the Royal College of Art. Recipients include: * 2013 - Anna Suwalowska * 2010 -

Leah Fusco Leah () appears in the Hebrew Bible as one of the two wives of the Biblical patriarch Jacob. Leah was Jacob's first wife, and the older sister of his second (and favored) wife Rachel. She is the mother of Jacob's first son Reuben. She has three ...

* 2010 - Rebecca Davies * 2009 - Zoe Taylor * 2006 - David Peter Kerr * 2003 - Daryl Waller * 2000 -

Yu Rong Yu Rong ( zh, 郁蓉) is a multi award-winning Chinese illustrator of children's picture books, especially known for her use of papercutting artwork. Biography Born in China, Yu Rong first trained as a primary school teacher, then studied for ...

* Laura Carlin * Yukki Yaura

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, Sheila 1925 births 1988 deaths 20th-century English women artists Alumni of the Royal College of Art Alumni of Nottingham School of Art Artists from Nottingham English women illustrators