Betty Mona Desmond Ayers (née FitzGerald; 19 September 1915 – 10 November 2017), known as Duffy Ayers, was an English portrait painter. She was known for most of her life by the nickname "Duffy". Born in

Great Missenden Great Missenden is an affluent village with approximately 2,000 residents in the Misbourne Valley in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England, situated between the towns of Amersham and Wendover, with direct rail connections to London Mar ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

, one of a pair of identical twin girls of an American mother and an Irish father, the brother of the politician and poet Desmond FitzGerald,Mel Gooding
"Duffy Ayers obituary"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 11 December 2017Betty M D Fitzgerald in ''England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915'', ancestry.com, accessed 15 November 2021 she trained at the

Central School of Art The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, and later married the painter and printmaker

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 ...

RA, son of

William Rothenstein Sir William Rothenstein (29 January 1872 – 14 February 1945) was an English painter, printmaker, draughtsman, lecturer, and writer on art. Emerging during the early 1890s, Rothenstein continued to make art right up until his death. Though he c ...

. In 1941 the couple moved to Chapel Cottage in the

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

village of

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

, and relocated the next year to Ethel House in the centre of the village. Duffy and Michael were important members of the famous art community which lived in the north Essex village during the post-war period. At Great Bardfield she was mainly known as Duffy Rothenstein, although she still painted under the name of Betty Fitzgerald. The Rothensteins, along with other village artists, organised a series of large open-house exhibitions that garnered much press attention during the 1950s. During this time Duffy painted mostly portraits, and exhibited some of her work at the 1955

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 ...

’ summer exhibition. By the end of 1955 her marriage to Michael Rothenstein had dissolved, and she left Great Bardfield. She settled in

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

, and married Eric Ayers (1921–2001), a graphic artist. After her second marriage she painted under the name of Duffy Ayers, and regularly exhibited at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

. One of her oil portraits, "The Arrival" (1993) is in the North West Essex collection of the

Fry Art Gallery The Fry Art Gallery is an art gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex. Recognised as an Accredited Museum by Arts Council England, it displays work by artists of national significance who lived or worked in North West Essex during the twentieth cent ...

Saffron Walden Saffron Walden is a market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and north of London. It retains a rural appearance and some buildings of the medieval period. The population was 15, ...

. Ayers latterly lived in London, and had two children from her first marriage: Julian Rothenstein (owner of Redstone Press) and Anne Rothenstein (b. 1949), artist and wife of film-director

Stephen Frears Stephen Arthur Frears (born 20 June 1941) is an English director and producer of film and television often depicting real life stories as well as projects that explore social class through sharply drawn characters. He's received numerous accola ...

Last years

Duffy Ayers turned 100 in September 2015 and died in November 2017 at the age of 102.

References

Sources

*Martin Salisbury, ''Artists of the Fry: Art and Design in the North West Essex Collection'', Cambridge: Ruskin Press, 2003. *"Artists of Great Bardfield", ''Hearts and Essex Observer'', 15 July 1955. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ayers, Duffy 1915 births 2017 deaths British identical twins English centenarians 20th-century English painters 21st-century English painters English twins English people of American descent English people of Irish descent Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design People from Great Bardfield Women centenarians