DELF, Vera Eleanor

1904 - 1999

As Vera Eleanor Hart, she was born at Cawnpore, India on 17 August 1904 and baptised 3 September 1904, daughter of Frank Walter Hart (1869-19 February 1938) and his wife Alice née Sheen, who married at Upton on Severn in 1897. By 1911, the family were living at 16 Granville Street, Ealing where her father Frank was a 42-year-old commercial traveller. Vera attended Glasgow School of Art in 1924 but, favouring a direct approach to her portraits, especially of children, left after the first year with her pictures much in demand. Vera returned to India where she married at Colaba, Bombay on 30 December 1929, Brigadier Charles MacIntyre Delf (9 November 1897-17 April 1981), they had on son and two daughters including Deborah Ardizzone, and it was not until after the Second World War that they returned to England, settling at Yoxford, Suffolk. Vera was highly active in the campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and against American bases, authoring many articles in newspapers and journals. With the help of friends Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988) and his wife Mary Fedden (1915-2012), in the early 1960s she established The Yoxford Gallery in the grounds of her Suffolk home. Several successful artists exhibited there, among them John Piper (1903-1992), Henry Holzer (1907-2007), Keith Grant (born 1930) and Ian Simpson (1933-2011), who donated pictures for causes like Medical Aid for Vietnam that Vera supported. Vera Eleanor Delf died at Yoxford on 26 February 1999.

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Works by This Artist