Malvina Cheek
| Malvina Cheek | |
|---|---|
| Born |
8 July 1915 Hampton on Thames, England |
| Died | 22 May 2016 (aged 100) |
| Nationality | British |
| Education |
|
| Known for | Painting, drawing |
Malvina Cheek, A.R.C.A., (8 July 1915 – 22 May 2016) was a British artist, best known for her work during World War II for the Recording Britain project. During the War she was commissioned for Recording Britain to make architectural records of old buildings in anticipation of their possible destruction. Eighteen finished works were presented to the scheme and her legacy is also preserved in many books.
Malvina Cheek was born at Hampton on Thames, the younger of two daughters of Percy Ebsworth Cheek, a banker with Glynn Mills, later Coutts (d. 1954) and Jessie, née Cross. Her Christian name comes from her paternal family's long-standing connection with the Falkland Islands. After leaving St Philomena’s, a Catholic school near Carshalton, she studied at Wimbledon School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art. Like many students of her generation she was influenced by the draftsman and engraver Robert Sargent Austin.
Cheek gained her RCA Diploma in 1938. She taught for two days a week at the Central School of Art and was evacuated with the school to Luton during World War Two. In Luton she continued to teach and also worked for a Blood Transfusion Unit at the local hospital, later moving to St Albans, where the art school was rapidly establishing itself as a centre of excellence. She would return to London for the weekend, a hazardous journey since there had to be total darkness on the trains to comply with the Blackout restrictions.
An introduction to Arnold Palmer resulted in Cheek receiving several commissions from the Recording Britain project: the counties she was allocated included Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cornwall. The Victoria & Albert Museum holds 14, while three Bedfordshire and one Cornish watercolour are still missing. Cheek was especially intrigued by Mow Cop, below the hill on which Primitive Methodism was founded in 1810.
The numerous participating artists in the scheme exhibited at the National Gallery, which had been emptied of its own collection. These exhibitions and the handsome four volume hardback set published just after the war by the Oxford University Press, partly financed by the Pilgrim Trust from the USA, enhanced these artists' reputations both at home and abroad. In 1943 and 1944 Cheek exhibited at the Royal Academy, where a painting entitled Blood Donors was sold but unfortunately its present location is not known. In September 1944 the War Artists' Advisory Committee purchased, for six guineas, the picture Suburban Flying-bomb Damage from Cheek.
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