Celia Winter-Irving

Celia Winter-Irving
Born	1941
Died	26 July 2009
Nationality	Australian
Occupation	Writer
Spouse(s)	Philip Thompson

Celia Winter-Irving (1941 – 26 July 2009), was an Australian-born, Zimbabwean-based artist and art critic who wrote extensively on Zimbabwean art, especially Shona sculpture, when she lived in Harare from 1987–2008 .

Celia Winter-Irving was born in Melbourne, the only child of William and Audrey Winter-Irving, and grew up at their farm called Gundamian, near Echuca. She was a granddaughter of Sir Samuel Hordern, who was the director of the family company Anthony Hordern & Sons. Winter-Irving studied fine arts, especially sculpture and became Director of Public Relations for the John Power Foundation for Fine Arts, University of Sydney. As a sculptor using metal, she won the Wyong Sculpture Prize but in later life she mainly painted. In 1981 she married Philip Thompson, a widower. They opened the Irving Sculpture Gallery in Glebe, New South Wales, the first in Australia dedicated solely to sculpture. Winter-Irving wrote about sculpture and art for magazines such as Craft International, Art Network and Arts Queensland. Philip Thompson died in 1985, following which she continued as Director of the Gallery and organised successful exhibitions, particularly those that introduced the Sydney public to Shona stone sculpture. Works were brought to Australia by Roy Guthrie, the founder of the Chapungu Sculpture Park and he introduced Celia to Tom Blomefield, a white farmer at Tengenenge in the north of Zimbabwe, who had created an artists' community of sculptors there. When, in 1986, the British art journal Studio International commissioned an article on Shona sculpture, Winter-Irving visited Zimbabwe to do research and stayed at the Tengenenge Sculpture Community. She was so impressed with what she saw that she moved to live permanently in Harare and decided to write a book about the sculpture of Zimbabwe.

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