Nan Youngman
| Nan Youngman | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
28 June 1906 Maidstone, Kent |
| Died | 17 April 1995 (aged 88) Cambridge |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | London Day Training College |
| Known for | Painting and art education |
Nancy Mayhew Youngman OBE, (28 June 1906 – 17 April 1995), was an English painter and educationalist. Youngman is remembered primarily as a painter, but from before the war to the mid-1960s she was an influential figure in art education, as a teacher, an author and an impressively efficient organiser of exhibitions.
She was born in Maidstone in 1906 and trained at the Slade School of Art (1924–27). Needing to finance her career as an artist by teaching, she went on to the London Day Training College. There she was taught by Marion Richardson, who introduced her to Roger Fry and awakened her interest in children's art. From 1929 until 1944 she divided her time between painting and teaching; she lectured for the London County Council, gave practical art classes for schoolteachers and taught part-time. The organisation of exhibitions became an important part of her strategy for increasing children's awareness of art.
The death of her friend the artist Felicia Browne in Spain in 1936 altered Youngman's political outlook. She joined the left-wing Artists' International Association (AIA) and organised Browne's memorial exhibition. AIA group shows became a focus for her painting, though politics never entered her own work. It was Nan Youngman who in 1939 famously asked a workman in from the Whitechapel High Street to open the AIA's exhibition "Art for All".
At the outbreak of war, she was evacuated with the children of Highbury Hill School where she was teaching to Huntingdon. With Betty Rea, the sculptor, Rea's two boys, and three children of an enlisted friend, she set up house, first in Godmanchester and later at 'Papermills' in Cambridge. In 1944 she became art adviser to Cambridgeshire under Henry Morris.
...
Wikipedia