MONNINGTON, Kathleen Rowley
As Kathleen Rowley Elliston, known as Kitty, she was born at 4 Parkside Avenue, Ipswich on 25 August 1908, daughter of William Rowley Elliston (1 February 1869-18 February 1954), barrister-at-law, and his wife Ethel Mary née Walton (22 July 1869-25 April 1964), who married at St Margaret's Westminster, London on 28 April 1898 and in 1939 were living at 4 Parkside Avenue, Ipswich with daughter Kitty, a private secretary. In 1911, Kitty was a 2-year-old, living at 4 Parkside Avenue with her 42-year-old father and two elder siblings, Dorothy Mary 11 and William Arthur 7, her 41-year-old mother was visiting her 72-year-old widowed mother, Emma Louisa Walton at Forest Hill, London. Kitty was educated at Ipswich High School for Girls and after the First World War, she studied at Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts and studied painting under Cedric Morris at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Benton End, Hadleigh, Suffolk. Kathleen exhibited at the Royal Academy and became a departmental assistant at the Slade School of Fine Art. A member and exhibitor at the Ipswich Art Club from 1937 and as Miss K. R. Elliston exhibited from 4 Parkside Avenue, Ipswich in 1937, three oils 'Philip's Crab Boat', 'Still Life' and 'Pedney'. During the Second World War she served as an officer in the Royal Navy and married in London in 1953, Meredith Monnington (1901-1988), when she became the sister-in-law of Sir Walter Thomas Monnington (1902-1976), president of the Royal Academy 1966-1976, after which she painted under her married name. Her oil 'Roses' was exhibited at the Centenary Show of the Ipswich Art Club in 1974 and in 1977 she exhibited at Ipswich from 'Anders', Orford, near Woodbridge, Suffolk two works 'Cabbage' and 'Cumbrian Farm' exhibiting one picture the following year and four in 1979 and three in 1980 'Olive Grove', 'Autumn Leaves' and 'Still Life'. Kathleen Rowley Monnington died at Anders, Orford, Suffolk on 2 September 1993.