* ISHBEL MCWHIRTER RCA (BRITISH b 1927 -),
RHINOCEROS
watercolour on paper, signed, titled and dated 1970
40cm x 50cm
Mounted, framed and under glass
Note: Born London in 1927 to a Scottish father and a Welsh mother, and a descendant of the Bard Hedd Wyn, Ishbel McWhirter was brought up in north Wales. She boarded and studied at A.S.Neill’s Summerhill School, resulting in her first solo show in London's Bond Street aged 18. Invited by the great Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka to become his pupil, which continued for 7 years. Kokoshka wrote in 1945, " I see my pupil Ishbel McWhirter moved by curiosity...she pictures her heroines with a serene remoteness, lovely restraint, and the strangeness of the designers of the white funeral vases of ancient Greece." Kokoshka encouraged her ‘lively un-English palette’ which has resulted in her vibrant watercolours and oils, often of the Menai Strait. Of her portraits, Kokoshka stated it appeared the colour came through the skin rather than being applied by a brush. She is best known for her portraits which include: Melvyn Bragg, Sir Kyffin Williams, Barbara Hepworth, Tilda Swinton, Nelson Mandela and Lord Scarman. In 1990 in honour of her time with Kokoschka she was invited to hold an exhibition at his birthplace near Vienna. Collections include: National Portrait Gallery, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh; National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth and Oriel Mon, Llangefni.