01 Work, The Art of War, Evelyn Gibbs' Women's Voluntary Services Clothing Exchange, with footnotes

Evelyn Gibbs (1905–1991)

Women's Voluntary Services Clothing Exchange, c. 1943

Oil on canvas

H 101.9 x W 76.2 cm

Imperial War Museum London

A scene inside a clothing exchange with women trying clothes on their children. Two WVS volunteers stand behind the counter.

 

Established shortly before war was declared, the Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defence undertook wartime duties focused around the aftermath of air raids. Running clothing stores were an integral part of this work. Behind the counter, the volunteers are wearing their distinctive bottle green coats. Clothing was collected and made available in the clothing stores for people who had been 'bombed out' of their homes following air raids. Mothers too could also exchange clothes as their children grew. The painting shows the care and intimacy, as well as the necessity, of women finding clothes to fit their children. More on this painting

Evelyn Gibbs (1905–1991) was a printmaker, draughtsman, painter and teacher, born in Liverpool, where she studied at the School of Art, 1922–6; at Royal College of Art, 1926–9; then at British School in Rome, 1929–31. A pioneering educationalist, her book The Teaching of Art in Schools, 1934, remained in print for almost 30 years. Taught at Goldsmiths’ College School of Art and was married to Sir Hugh Willatt. While evacuated to Nottingham with Goldsmiths’, she founded the Midlands Group of Artists in 1943, while working on commissions as a war artist, one painting and several drawings being acquired by the Imperial War Museum. Showed at RA, NEAC, RE, of which she was a member, and other major galleries and there was a posthumous exhibition at Morley Gallery in 1994, having originated at Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham in 1993, later touring to Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead.

There was a further exhibition at Nottingham University, 1997, and a retrospective toured from University of Wales, Aberystwyth, from 2001. Gibbs was a fine draughtsman in the classical tradition and her work is held by Arts Council, Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and other public collections. Lived in London. More on Evelyn Gibbs

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