Brenda Rawnsley

Brenda Rawnsley (31 July 1916 – 25 June 2007) was a British arts campaigner who devised and managed the innovative School Prints scheme that provided artwork to primary schools. She was decorated for her services during the Second World War.

Early life Brenda Mary Rawnsley (née Hugh-Jones) was born on 31 July 1916 in Oxford, Oxfordshire. She was educated at Queen Anne's School, Caversham, before winning a scholarship to the University of Oxford.

Career

Second World War In 1939 Rawnsley enlisted in the ATS Officer Cadet training unit, but soon left to work for the Ministry of Economic Warfare in London. and was posted abroad, working in Heliopolis, RAF Ramleh in Palestine, Alexandria and Algiers. In 1945 Rawnsley, by now a Squadron Leader, left the service with several medals. During the war, following Derek's death in 1943, School Prints Ltd was managed by Derek's assistant, Dorothy Bland. She started a new project to commission original lithographs to rent to primary Schools. The lithographs were printed from stone or zinc plates by Thomas Griffiths and the Baynard Press.

This series was produced using innovative plastic lithographic plates called Plastocowell, which were developed by the printers W. S. Cowell Ltd.'s of Ipswich. The resulting plastic sheets are now in the collection of the Tate. Later Brenda Rawnsley moved to Stradishall in Suffolk and worked as a librarian before retiring to Milford on Sea for the last 20-years of her life.

The Hepworth Wakefield's School Prints In 2018 The Hepworth Wakefield, inspired by Rawnsley's School Prints scheme, launched a 5-year project, School Prints, commissioning artists including Rose Wylie, Peter Blake and Linder Sterling to produce prints which are then donated to local primary schools. In 2020, in partnership with the Turner Contemporary the scheme was extended to local Margate schools. The fourth edition of the project in 2021 featured six black artists to support the teaching of black histories. The artists were Hurvin Anderson, Alvaro Barrington, Frank Bowling, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson and Yinka Shonibare.