SPRING-SMITH, Effie

1907 - 1974

Effie Spring-Smith was born at Doric Place, Woodbridge on 26 May 1907, daughter of unmarried Liverpool born Annie Darby (1870-4 June 1922), who was cook to Wilford George Smith (1871-28 December 1917), farmer, of Doric House, Woodbridge. In 1911, Effie was a three-year-old living at Doric Place, Woodbridge, with her 40-year-old mother Annie Darby who was of Wayside, Ipswich Road, Woodbridge when she died at the Ipswich & East Suffolk Hospital in 1922. Effie was educated at Ipswich High School for Girls and studied under George Rushton at the Ipswich School of Art and at the Slade School of Fine Art 1925-1929 under Professor Henry Tonks (1862-1937). A painter of figures, portraits and flowers in oil and watercolour, she exhibited at Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery; Royal Society of Portrait Painters; the Royal Academy; the New English Art Club;Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Society of Women Artists 1930-1940 from London and as a member at the Royal Society of British Artists. She exhibited in Suffolk at Tibbenham's Art Gallery, Upper Brook Street, Ipswich in 1943 'Cornish Coast' and 'Spring Flowers' and was a member of Ipswich Art Club 1930-1966 and exhibited from 138 Haverstock Hill, London NW3 in 1932 five works 'A Suffolk Kitchen', 'Abbes V.', 'Portrait', 'The Pink Necklace' and a design for a mural decoration 'Follow Me', four in 1937 'Evening on a Farm', 'Lugano Market', 'Baker's Round' and 'Carthew Point, St Ives' and regularly had four to six pictures on show annually, her watercolour 'The Free Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb' was exhibited at the centenary exhibition of the club in 1974. In 1939, a commercial artist living at Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, London and she married at Hampstead later that year, artist Herbert Cutner (5 February 1881-13 February 1969) and her later paintings were signed Cutner. Effie Cutner died at 1 Temple Fortune Lane, London NW.11, on 1 November 1974. One of her works, A portrait of the Billiard and Snooker Player Joyce Gardner, was sold at auction on the 12 May 2021 for £4,850.

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Works by This Artist