Malvina Cheek

Malvina Cheek, A.R.C.A., (8 July 1915 – 22 May 2016) was a British artist, best known for her work during World War II for the Recording Britain project. During the War she was commissioned for Recording Britain to make architectural records of old buildings in anticipation of their possible destruction. Eighteen finished works were presented to the scheme and her legacy is also preserved in many books.

Early life Malvina Cheek was born at Hampton on Thames, the younger of two daughters of Percy Ebsworth Cheek, a banker with Glynn Mills, later Coutts (died 1954) and Jessie, née Cross. Her Christian name comes down through her paternal family originating with a Belgian ancestor. After leaving St Philomena’s, a Catholic school near Carshalton, she studied at Wimbledon School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art. Like many students of her generation she was influenced by the draftsman and engraver Robert Sargent Austin. while three Bedfordshire and one Cornish watercolour are still missing. Cheek was especially intrigued by Mow Cop, below the hill on which Primitive Methodism was founded in 1810.

In 1945 a painting entitled Study of American soldiers standing outside, the Rainbow Corner, North London, was sold to James Bussy of Sheffield. Her work in portraiture continued apace and one of the most characteristic paintings, which remained in her own collection, was that of her father, Percy Ebsworth Cheek, in his ARP helmet.

Post-war After the War, two further topographical books, illustrated by her exclusively, were published for the Visions of England series by Paul Elek: The Black Country, by Walter Allen in 1946 and Derbyshire, by Nellie Kirkham, in 1947. In 1944, Cheek began to teach at St Albans School of Art, in what was considered to be a very informal art college: in 1947 she was appointed to teach permanently in the painting school, usually the preserve of men. She continued to teach there until she became, briefly, a full-time senior lecturer in the Graphic Design School at Twickenham College of Technology.

Cheek settled in Hampstead. There, her continued enthusiasm for the initiative set by Recording Britain, led her to sketch many local London vistas. Two particularly fine examples are Bombed Building, Weatherall House, Well Walk NW3 being knocked down of 1948 and Hampstead Heath Station and Magdala Pub 1949 are now in the collection of the Hampstead Museum at Burgh House, just up the hill from where her family still live. Cheek shared a house on Church Row in Hampstead village with fellow artist Olive Cook in the late 1940s.

In 1950, she was asked to design the sets for The Atom Secrets, a play for the toy theatre by George Speaight. In autumn of 2013 an exhibition was held at Burgh House.