BURNS, Margaret Delisle

1888 - 1974

As Margaret Alice Arnold Hannay, she was born in London on 9 July 1888, daughter of Arnold Alexander Hannay (1858-11 August 1927), a solicitor, and his wife Alice/Alya Mary Howard (1865-31 May 1934), youngest daughter of William Liddon Howard, who married at St Leonard's-on-Sea, Sussex on 14 May 1887, her mother Alys Mary Hannay exhibited at the Royal Academy from 10 Ranulf Road, Hampsstead in 1923. Margaret was the sister of Alexander Howard Hannay (1889–1955), art critic of the 'London Mercury', who published 'Roger Fry and Other Essays' in 1937. Margaret studied at the Slade School of Fine Art where she won the prize for figure drawing in 1910, since when she has worked in France, the United States and Italy, taking as her chief subjects, the old buildings of these countries. She married in 1912, the eminent national and international civil servant and academic Cecil Delisle Burns (26 January 1879–22 January 1942), they had two sons. A landscape and figure painter, she has painted under both as Mrs Hannay and Margaret Delisle Burns and exhibited at the Royal Academy; Goupil Gallery; the Women's International Art Club and the New English Art Club and in the provinces. Her earlier architectural drawings were done in Dieppe when she first adopted the method of drawing in Indian ink with body-colour on brown. The obituary notice for her husband in 'The Times' of 23 January 1942, said that she was ‘a gifted painter and etcher’. They lived at 3 Keats Grove, Hampstead and in 1927 they built, at a cost of £1,000, Walberswick House at Walberswick, Suffolk which was destroyed by enemy action in World War Two and her riverside studio was washed away in the 1953 East Coast Floods. During her time at Walberswick she exhibited with the Sole Bay Group. As Margaret Alice Arnold DeLisle Burns, she died at 82 Carlton Hill, London N.W.8, on 29 September 1974. She signed her work 'Margaret Delisle Burns'.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from 82a Carlton Hill, London
1957 833 View of Hampstead from Upper Terrace - watercolour
         946 Park Village East - watercolour

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Works by This Artist