Nationality British | Name Gertrude Hermes Elected RA | |
Full Name Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes Known for Wood engraving, Print-maker Awards Order of the British Empire Books Wood Engravings by Gertrude Hermes, Being Illustrations to Selborne | ||
Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes (18 August 1901 – 9 May 1983) was an English wood engraver, printmaker and sculptor.
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Life
Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes was born on 18 August 1901 in Bickley, Kent. Her parents, Louis August Hermes and Helene, née Gerdes, were from Altena, near Dortmund, Germany. In about 1921 she attended the Beckenham School of Art, and in 1922 enrolled at Leon Underwood's Brook Green School of Painting and Sculpture, where other students included Eileen Agar, Raymond Coxon, Henry Moore and Blair Hughes-Stanton, whom she married in 1926; they separated in 1931, and were divorced in 1933.
Hermes exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1934, and showed at the Venice International Exhibition in 1939. In 1937 Hermes produced a commission for the British Pavilion at the Paris World Fair. She worked in Canada from 1940 to 1945. She taught wood engraving and linocutting at the Central School of Art in London (now Central St Martin's) in the late 1940s to early '50s. She also took a drawing class to London Zoo. She taught wood and lino block printing at the Royal Academy Schools, from 1966.
She was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1963, a full Royal Academician in 1971 and was appointed an OBE in 1981.
Her work is in many public collections including the Tate, and the National Portrait Gallery. Her work was also in private collections including a c1926 bronze "Swallow" door knocker in the collection of David Bowie.
Works
