DREWRY, Yvonne

1918 - 2007

Yvonne Marjorie Drewry was born at Brentford, Middlesex on 18 February 1918, daughter of Alfred Frederick Vere Drewry (16 January 1888-30 August 1978), a motor tyre factor, and his wife Ada née Anniss (15 January 1883-1 March 1972), who married at Brentford in 1914 and in 1939, were living at 6 Clinning Road, Southport, Lancashire. Yvonne studied at Southport School of Art and in 1939, won an Andrew Grant scholarship of £120 a year for three years, to train at the Edinburgh College of Art where she studied under Sir William George Gillies (1898-1973), John Maxwell (1905-1962) and book illustrator Joan Hassall (1906-1988). Yvonne married at Southport in 1941, Robert Alexander Campbell and they moved to Woodford, Essex, where two of their four children were born, and where her husband Bob was a teacher at the then new County School at Buckhurst Hill. In 1944 they moved to Castle Road, Ipswich and the following year purchased Black Mill House, 196 Kirton Road, Trimley St Martin, Felixstowe, Suffolk, where they had two further children. The Campbell's had separated by 1968. Yvonne Drewry was a prolific artist, working in oil, watercolour, and pen & ink, and was also a notable printmaker and typographer, her other work included woven textiles and handicrafts. Her work was figurative, although her later works were much more abstract in character, with the main subjects being landscapes and seascapes of the Suffolk countryside, travelling around Suffolk and Norfolk in her Fiat 238 camper van seeking suitable subjects. She also worked with still life pictures of flowers, plants, and trees, including those growing in her own garden; she also produced an occasional portrait. Yvonne exhibited regularly in Suffolk galleries, including Taplin Gallery, Woodbridge; Piers Feetham Gallery, Aldeburgh; Gainsborough's House Gallery, Sudbury; Wolsey Art Gallery, Ipswich and from her own studio, she also exhibited at Mall Galleries, London and internationally including Czechoslovakia, France, and America and in the 1994 Laing Art Competition, she was highly commended. A member of the Ipswich Art Club under the name of Mrs Yvonne Drewry from 1945, but had exhibited in 1944 three works, 'Boats, Coombe Martin', 'Contentment' and 'Flower Piece' also exhibiting a print 'Sea Wave' at the 1974 centenary exhibition. In 1990 she exhibited from 'Out Yonder', Alderton Road, Hollesley, Woodbridge, Suffolk, four paintings 'Old Trees', 'Shingle Street Coastline', 'Appletree in Snow' and 'The White Seat'. From 1944, Drewry had created several short run private press illustrated books that she printed herself on an Albion press and bound under the imprint 'The Black Mill Press' and later 'The Centaur Press', in editions of twenty-four, printed on cut handmade paper with slipcases. She also illustrated existing works, including Edmund Spenser's 'Prothalamion' and a posthumous edition of the engravings of Viola Paterson (1899-1981). In 1985, a founder member of the [[8+1 Suffolk Group,4380]], her works are rarely titled but were signed 'Yvonne Drewry' with the year. Drewry was also a teacher of art at the Amberfield School in Nacton, Ipswich and she also ran short painting and printing courses in her home, her pupils included Maggi Hambling and Juliet Horncastle. She was active in various art groups including the Deben Art Group now the Felixstowe Art Group. In 1977, Drewry moved briefly to Tuddenham St Martin, just outside Ipswich before settling in Hollesley in 1980, where she lived until 2004. Suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, Yvonne Marjorie Drewry spent her last years in a nursing home in Woodbridge, Suffolk and died on 9 August 2007, aged 89.

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Works by This Artist