HASTINGS, Sybil Hamilton

1890 - 1978

Sybil Hamilton Hastings was born at 'The Buttlands', Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk on 28 November 1890, and baptised at Wells on 30 April 1891, daughter of wealthy William Thomas Hastings and his wife Mary née Bowyer-Smyth (24 July 1863-23 December 1947), daughter of Sir William Bowyer-Smyth of Hill Hall, Theydon Mount, Essex, who married at Kensington in 1886. In 1901, Sybil was a 10-year-old, living at 2 Rothsay Road, Bedford with her parents, 39-year-old William and 37-year-old Mary, and her 13-year-old sibling brother Cosmo. Sybil studied at the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society under John Noble Barlow (1861-1917) and Norman Garstin (1847-1926) and attended the Byam Shaw School of Art. Sybil specialised in watercolours, landscape and still life, and was member of the Ipswich Art Club 1934-1939, although she had exhibited in 1927 two watercolours, 'Oathall Farm, Suffolk' and 'The Mill Woodbridge'. In 1935 she exhibited from The Haven, Woodbridge, Suffolk an oil, 'Late Summer Flowers' and four watercolours 'A Corner of Bradford-on-Avon', 'Ipswich Dock', 'Flowers that Sway through Sunny Hours' and 'Strangulation' and at the Ipswich Club's 1974 centenary she exhibited an oil, 'J. T. B. of Woodbridge'. She also exhibited at the Society of Women Artists; Walker Art Gallery; Walker's Gallery, London and Cooling Galleries, London and at the Paris Salon. In 1939, an unmarried artist, living at The Haven, Fitzgerald Road, Woodbridge with her widowed mother Mary, retaining two servants. Sybil Hamilton Hastings died at 11 Bestwell Crescent, Wareham, Dorset on 26 May 1978 and was buried beside her mother and their ancestors of Sir Thomas Smith from 1577, in the churchyard of St Andrews church, Theydon Mount, Essex, where there is a monument to Sybil. She was unmarried. Many of her painting are in the U.S.A. She signed her works 'S. H. Hastings' or 'S. H. H.'.

---

Works by This Artist