Finally, we return to one of our favourite war artists, Evelyn Dunbar (1906-60). Sim Fine Art has Girls Learning to Stook and Men Stooking (1940, private collection) on its website although it is not in the current online exhibition. It shows her "at the height of her powers, showing her ability to distil the essence of an activity, investing it with her characteristic humour, charm and symbolic power". We have a World War II book category; the paintings on the Post this week complement many of these titles.

Eve Kirk (1900-69), another Slade-trained artist, worked for civil defence in London during WWII and continued to paint landscapes. Bomb Damage in the City (c1941, IMW) in which London resembles classical ruins, was shown as part of the exhibition of National War Pictures at the Royal Academy in 1945.

The Sim Fine Art exhibition catalogue considers the fascinating life of Elsie Gledstanes (1891-1982), another graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art, who painted during both World Wars. She drove ambulances in WWI and served in the Women's Royal Naval Service in WWII. Although she documented women's roles and and contributions in both conflicts, she was never an official artist. This is The Dirty Plate (1940, IWM).

As Sim Fine Art says, official war artists were overwhelmingly male; of the thirty-seven there was only one woman (Evelyn Dunbar, and she was restricted to ‘women’s subjects’). For others, the war spelled the end of their artistic careers. This is The Milliners, painted on the eve of war by Joyce Beer (1915-2006) who had been a promising student at the Slade School of Fine Art until war broke out, and her father advised her not to move with it to Oxford. 

Sim Fine Art online exhibitions unearth many fascinating pictures, some of which have been "hidden away in folios" for years. The most recent, 'The War and Women Artists', recognises the "historically sad fact is that women’s artistic contribution to the war effort wasn’t fully recognised at the time", but is also a fine introduction to several overlooked artists. This is Paper Sir? (exh. 1939) by Bethia Clarke (1867-1959) in which an ageing news-seller is “depicted rheumy-eyed and vulnerable against a backdrop of headlines prophesying war and destruction that seem to belong to a modern era that has left him behind”.

The main focus of the Stitched exhibition is on grand, heirloom embroideries often made by titled ladies, but it does include a few everyday, domestic items such as covers and cosies which were once used in so many households. In Out of the Window, Roy's mother brings out her padded satin tea cosy on special occasions, such as Ursula's first visit. (This is an example from the 1930s.)

In the mid-twentieth century, the 'art embroidery' world had a tendency to look down on needlewomen who used the popular iron-on transfer designs which came with women's magazines to embroider practical household linens for pleasure and as a creative outlet (see, for example, Miss Porteous and Miss Moodie in The Village). But we now look at these and see excellent skills and a wide variety of interpretation in, for example, the ubiquitous but often stunning crinoline ladies they stitched.