Brenda Rawnsley (31 July 1916 – 25 June 2007) was a British arts campaigner who devised and managed the innovative School Prints scheme that provided artwork to primary schools. She was decorated for her services during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Early life

Brenda Mary Rawnsley (née Hugh-Jones) was born on 31 July 1916 in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, Oxfordshire. She was educated at Queen Anne's School, Caversham, before winning a scholarship to the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

Career

Second World War

In 1939 Rawnsley enlisted in the ATS Officer Cadet training unit, but soon left to work for the

Ministry of Economic Warfare The Minister of Economic Warfare was a British government position which existed during the Second World War. The minister was in charge of the Special Operations Executive and the Ministry of Economic Warfare. See also * Blockade of Germany (193 ...

in London. In 1941 she became a

Women's Auxiliary Air Force The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs (), was the female auxiliary of the Royal Air Force during World War II. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 180,000 at its peak strength in 1943, with over 2 ...

officer and was posted abroad, working in Heliopolis, RAF Ramleh in Palestine, Alexandria and Algiers. Later, in England, she worked with

Duncan Sandys Edwin Duncan Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys (; 24 January 1908 – 26 November 1987), was a British politician and minister in successive Conservative governments in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a son-in-law of Winston Churchill and played a key r ...

forecasting the course of flying bombs (V1s) and rockets (V2s). In June 1945 she undertook an intelligence mission to a German bomb factory in the

Harz Mountains The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...

. In 1945 Rawnsley, by now a Squadron Leader, left the service with several medals.

The School Prints

In 1935 Rawnsley's future husband, Derek Rawnsley, had founded Picture Hire Limited and School Prints Limited. The former loaned original works to private homes while School Prints Ltd hired reproductions to secondary Schools. During the war, following Derek's death in 1943, School Prints Ltd was managed by Derek's assistant, Dorothy Bland. In 1945 Rawnsley took over the running of School Prints Ltd and took advice from art historian Herbert Read. She started a new project to commission original lithographs to rent to primary Schools. In 1946 she sent letters to a large number of British artists: “We are producing a series of auto-lithographs … for use in schools, as a means of giving school children an understanding of contemporary art. By keeping the price as low as possible, we are able to bring this scheme … within reach of all Education Authorities.” The selected artists were asked to produce a lithograph using no more than six colours, to help with mass production. Artists in the first two series of prints produced in 1946 and 1947 included John Nash (Harvesting, 1947),

Feliks Topolski Feliks Topolski RA (14 August 1907 – 24 August 1989) was a Polish expressionist painter and draughtsman working primarily in the United Kingdom. Biography Feliks Topolski was born on 14 August 1907 in Warsaw, Poland. He studied in the Acade ...

John Skeaping John Rattenbury Skeaping, RA (9 June 1901 – 5 March 1980) was an English sculptor and equine painter and sculptor. He designed animal figures for Wedgwood, and his life-size statue of Secretariat is exhibited at the National Museum of R ...

David Gentleman David William Gentleman (born 11 March 1930) is an English artist. He studied art and painting at the Royal College of Art under Edward Bawden and John Nash. He has worked in watercolour, lithography and wood engraving, at scales ranging fr ...

Edwin La Dell Thomas Edwin La Dell (7 January 1914 – 27 June 1970) was a British printmaker, lithographer, illustrator and painter active during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Life & career Edwin La Dell was the son of Thomas La Dell, a Sheffield-born ...

(Tower of London, 1945),

Hans Feibusch Hans Nathan FeibuschFeibusch, Hans Nathan< ...

L.S. Lowry Laurence Stephen Lowry ( ; 1 November 1887 – 23 February 1976) was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict Pendlebury, Lancashire (where he lived and worked for more than 40 years) as well as Salford and its vicinity ...

(Punch and Judy, 1946),

Michael Rothenstein William Michael Rothenstein (19 March 1908 – 6 July 1993) was a British printmaker, painter and art teacher. Early life Born in Hampstead, London, on 19 March 1908, he was the youngest of four children born to the celebrated artist, Sir W ...

Julian Trevelyan Julian Otto Trevelyan (20 February 1910 – 12 July 1988) was an English artist and poet. Early life Trevelyan was the only child to survive to adulthood of Robert Calverley Trevelyan and his wife Elizabeth van der Hoeven. His grandfather wa ...

(Harbour, 1946) and

John Tunnard John Samuel Tunnard (7 May 1900 – 12 December 1971) was an English Modernist designer and painter. He was the cousin of landscape architect Christopher Tunnard. Life Tunnard was born in Sandy, Bedfordshire, and educated at Charterhouse Sc ...

. The lithographs were printed from stone or zinc plates by Thomas Griffiths and the Baynard Press. In 1947 Rawnsley flew to France and convinced

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

(Composition, 1948) Georges Braque,

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

, Fernand Léger and

Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted ...

to produce lithographs for the School Prints scheme. The 'European series' was launched in 1949, consisting of six prints, the final artist being Henry Moore (Sculptural Objects, 1949). This series was produced using innovative plastic lithographic plates called Plastocowell, which were developed by the printers Cowell's of Ipswich. The resulting plastic sheets are now in the collection of the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

. Unlike the earlier lithographs the more modernist series wasn't popular with schools and ultimately led to the later financial failure of School Prints Ltd, but at its peak there were 4,000 schools subscribed to the scheme. Alongside the lithographic commissions, Rawnsley continued with the original business of hiring reproductions of well-known paintings to schools. In the 1950s this was expanded to industry and then to hospitals. In the 1970s

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

, through Observer Art, which sold prints to its readers, agreed to sell all the remaining European prints and in 1989 the remaining School Prints stock was bought by Merivale Editions.

Later life

Rawnsley was elected to the position of Master of the

Fine Art Trade Guild The Fine Art Trade Guild is an organisation representing the fine art and framing industry. Based in London, the Guild operates primarily in the United Kingdom and Ireland, also in a smaller capacity in New Zealand. History The first fine art tra ...

(1961–62). Later Brenda Rawnsley moved to Stradishall in Suffolk and worked as a librarian before retiring to

Milford on Sea Milford on Sea, often hyphenated, is a large village or small town and a civil parish on the Hampshire coast. The parish had a population of 4,660 at the 2011 census and is centred about south of Lymington. Tourism and businesses for quite pr ...

for the last 20-years of her life.

Personal life

Rawnsley (née Hugh-Jones) married Flt Lt Derek Rawnsley in February 1941 but he died in an accident in February 1943. In 1949 Rawnsley married Geoffrey Keighley and they had one son before the marriage was dissolved in 1952.

Death and legacy

Rawnsley died in Milford on Sea, Hampshire on 25 June 2007. The School Prints have become highly collectible. In 2007, Rawnsley and the School Prints featured in an exhibition at Pallant House Gallery, ''Art of the Classroom: School Prints 1946-49''.

The Hepworth Wakefield's School Prints

In 2018

The Hepworth Wakefield The Hepworth Wakefield is an art museum in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, which opened on 21 May 2011. The gallery is situated on the south side of the River Calder and takes its name from artist and sculptor Barbara Hepworth who was born a ...

, inspired by Rawnsley's School Prints scheme, launched a 5-year project
School Prints
commissioning artists including

Rose Wylie Rose Wylie (born 14 October 1934) is a British painter. She is an artist known for creating large paintings on unprimed canvas.Salle, David (12 May 2022). "Going on Her Nerve". ''The New York Review of Books'' 69 (8): 32–34. Life and work She ...

, Peter Blake and

Linder Sterling Linder Sterling (born 1954, Liverpool), commonly known as Linder, is a British artist known for her photography, radical feminist photomontage and confrontational performance art. She was also the former front-woman of Manchester based post-punk ...

to produce prints which are then donated to local primary schools. In 2020, in partnership with the

Turner Contemporary Turner Contemporary is one of the UK’s leading contemporary art galleries. Celebrating Margate’s connection with the painter J.M.W. Turner (1775 – 1851), an artist who believed that art could be an agent of change, its year-round exhibition ...

the scheme was extended to local Margate schools. The fourth edition of the project in 2021 featured six black artists to support the teaching of black histories. The artists were

Hurvin Anderson Hurvin Anderson (born 1965) is a British painter. Early life and education Anderson was born in Birmingham, England, to parents of Jamaican origin. He was educated at Wimbledon College of Art, London and The Royal College of Art, London. Career ...

Alvaro Barrington Alvaro Barrington (born 1983) is a London-based artist. Primarily a painter, Barrington often incorporates yarn, wood and other media into his work. Early life and education Alvaro Barrington was born on 1 February 1983 in Caracas, Venezuela, th ...

Frank Bowling Sir Richard Sheridan Patrick Michael Aloysius Franklin Bowling (born 26 February 1934, Bartica, British Guiana), known as Frank Bowling, is a Guyana-born British artist. His paintings relate to Abstract expressionism, Color Field painting, and ...

Lubaina Himid Lubaina Himid (born 1954) is a British artist and curator. She is a professor of contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire.Claudette Johnson Claudette Elaine Johnson (born 1959) is a British visual artist. She is known for her large-scale drawings of Black women and involvement with the BLK Art Group. She was described by Modern Art Oxford as "one of the most accomplished figurativ ...

and

Yinka Shonibare Yinka Shonibare (born 9 August 1962), is a British-Nigerian artist living in the United Kingdom. His work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. A hallmark of his art is t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rawnsley, Brenda 1916 births 2007 deaths British art teachers Education activists British women in World War II British librarians British women librarians People educated at Queen Anne's School