Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes (1901 – 1983) was a British wood engraver and sculptor. During the 1930s, Hermes was a member of the English Wood Engraving Society (1925–31) and showed his work at the Society of Wood Engravers, the Royal Academy, and The London Group.
Biography
Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes was born in Bickley, Kent, on August 18, 1901. Louis August Hermes and Helene, née Gerdes, were from Altena, Germany, near Dortmund. She attended the Beckenham School of Art in around 1921. She then enrolled in Leon Underwood’s Brook Green School of Painting and Sculpture in 1922, where she met Eileen Agar, Raymond Coxon, Henry Moore, and Blair Hughes-Stanton, whom she later married in 1926. They divorced in 1933 after separating in 1931.
Hermes was a contributor to Joseph Bard’s Island (1931), which was a short-lived publication. She was also a Penguin Books commissioned illustrator.
Hermes began frequently exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1934, and in 1939, she participated in the Venice International Exhibition. Hermes completed a commission for the British Pavilion at the 1937 World Fair in Paris. From 1940 to 1945, she lived and worked in the United States and Canada. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she taught wood engraving and lino cutting at the Central School of Art in London (now Central St Martin’s). She also went to London Zoo for a drawing class. Since 1966, she has taught wood and lino block printing at the Royal Academy Schools.
Hermes was made a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1949. In 1963, she was made an Associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1971, she was made a full Royal Academician. Her linocut Stonehenge won the first prize in the Giles Bequest competition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1961. In 1981, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Her work can be found in several public collections, including the Tate and the National Gallery.
Notable Works
- Spring bouquet, 1929, wood engraving
- Leda and the Swan, 1932, sculpture
- The warrior’s tomb, 1941, wood engraving
- Bat and Spider, 1932, wood engraving
- Other Cats and Henry, 1952, wood engraving
- Kathleen Raine, 1954, sculpture
- Peacock, 1961, bronze sculpture, for Ordsall High School in Salford
Exhibitions
- 1967 Bronzes and Carvings, Drawings, Wood Engravings, Wood and Lino Block Cuts, 1924–1967 Whitechapel Art Gallery
- 2008 North House Gallery
- 2015 – 2016 Wild Girl: Gertrude Hermes The Hepworth Wakefield. First UK retrospective of Hermes’s work in 30 years.
Sources
Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing. https://amzn.to/3ElmSlL
Wikipedia contributors. (2021, May 30). Gertrude Hermes. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:42, September 22, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gertrude_Hermes&oldid=1025967934
More on Illustrators
-
Lotta Nieminen: A Blend of Illustration and Graphic Design
Lotta Nieminen, a Finnish designer based in New York City, is celebrated for her vibrant, unique graphic designs and illustrations. Raised in an artistic family and trained in Helsinki, she has made significant impacts in both print and children’s illustration, earning global acclaim and numerous awards. Read More →
-
Alphonse Mucha (1860 – 1939) – Moravian decorator and painter
Alphonse Mucha (1860 – 1939) was a Moravian decorator, painter, and graphic artist. In the 1890s and early 1900s, Mucha is well known for his Art Nouveau posters, particularly those of Sarah Bernhardt. Mucha first designed stage sets in Vienna; moved to Munich, in 1885 and Paris in 1887.Read More →
-
Walther Klemm: The Master of Monochromatic Woodblock Prints
Walther Klemm (1883-1957), a German painter, printmaker, and illustrator, was known for his monochromatic woodblock prints, particularly of animals. This article delves into Klemm’s life, from his early years in Karlsbad to his recognition at the Vienna Secession Exhibition and his professorship at the University of Fine Arts in Weimar. Celebrated for his unique interpretation…
-
Keith Haring Artwork (1958 – 1990) – art that danced
Keith Haring was best known for his graffiti-like painting, initially on the black paper used to cover discontinued billboard advertisements in the New York subway. After after a feverish 1980’s style career of surging popular success and grudging critical attention, Haring died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 31.Read More →
-
Gertrude Hermes (1902 – 1983) British Illustrator, Sculptor & Designer
Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes was born in Bickley, Kent, on August 18, 1901. Louis August Hermes and Helene, née Gerdes, were from Altena, Germany, near Dortmund. She attended the Beckenham School of Art in around 1921. She then enrolled in Leon Underwood’s Brook Green School of Painting and Sculpture in 1922, where she met Eileen…
-
Clare Veronica Leighton: Bridging Nations Through Wood Engravings
Clare Veronica Leighton, a significant 20th-century British wood engraver, stained glass designer, and writer, was born in England but became an American in 1945. She was known for her rural subjects and influenced many Canadian artists. Leighton created figurative wood engravings and illustrations for mass production, contributing to books like Wuthering Heights and The Farmer’s…
-
Duane Bryers (1911 – 2012) – Pinup artist – naughty but nice
One of my favourite pinup artists was Minnesota born Duane Bryers, creator of the famous Hilda, a pleasingly, popular and plump pinup girl. Bryers’ background was as interesting as his illustrations. Born in northern Michigan, he excelled at acrobatics as a child. His family moved to Virginia, Minnesota, at 12 and he soon had the…
-
George Barbier one of the Great French Illustrators
George Barbier was one of the Great French Illustrators of the early 20th centuryRead More →
-
Paul Iribe (1883 – 1935) French Designer and Illustrator
Paul Iribe was a influential French designer and illustrator contributing significantly to the Art Deco movement, especially in fashion and advertising. He produced significant work in furniture, fashion illustration, theatrical design and jewelry, and spent time in Hollywood as a theatrical designer. Read More →
-
George Sheringham (1884 – 1937) British Interior designer
He was born in London and had a brother, Hugh, an Angling Editor of The Field. He attended the King’s School, Gloucester, the Slade School of Fine Art (1899–1901), and the Sorbonne, Paris (1904–1906).Read More →
-
Theodor Kittelsen (1857 – 1914) Norwegian Ceramicist and Book Illustrator
In the early 1900s, he was a designer for Porsgrunds Porselaensfabrik, Porsgrunn. In 1882 Kittelsen was granted a state scholarship to study in Paris. In 1887 he returned to Norway for good. When back in Norway, he found nature to be a great inspiration. He spent the next two years in Lofoten, where he lived…
-
Hattie Stewart’s doodle-bombing
Hattie Stewart is a London-based painter and illustrator. Her tongue-in-cheek artwork glides smoothly between various creative sectors, including Fashion, Music, and Contemporary Art, despite the fact that she is best known for ‘doodlebombing’ over influential Magazines.Read More →
-
The Supercharged Art Of Walter Molino
Walter Molino was born in 1915 and died in 1997 at age 82. He began working professionally as an illustrator and caricaturist in 1935 for a newspaper and two children’s magazines, followed by a satirical magazine and several comic strip series.Read More →
-
Yoshitomo Nara (b.1959) Japanese Artist and Designer
Nara grew up in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, about 300 miles north of the Tochigi Prefecture. His exposure to Western music on the American military radio station Far East Network in Honshu influenced his artistic imagination early. Later, he would provide cover art for bands including Shonen Knife, R.E.M., and Bloodthirsty Butchers.Read More →
-
Tom Ngo’s Architectural Absurdity
“Common sense and conventional practice prohibit the evolution of architecture.” This is the first quote you find reading Tom Ngo’s Master’s thesis: The Dinner Address, A Venture into Architectural Absurdity. Read More →
-
Jessie Marion King (1875 – 1949) Scottish illustrator of children’s books
Jessie Marion King (1875 – 1949) was a well-known Scottish illustrator who specialised in children’s books. She also painted pottery and crafted bookplates, jewellery, and fabric. King was a member of the Glasgow Girls, a collective of female artists.Read More →
-
Mr.Otter’s Practice Travels: Illustrations by Simon Lee
Cute illustrations of a traveling otter and his many adventures by Beijing-based artist Simon Lee . The style of the illustrations remind me of the woodblock prints (Ukiyo-e) of Ando Hiroshige (1797–1858). Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries.Read More →
-
André Lhote (1885 – 1962) French Artist and Illustrator
Lhote was born 5 July 1885 in Bordeaux, France, and learned wood carving and sculpture from the age of 12, when his father apprenticed him to a local furniture maker to be trained as a sculptor in wood. He enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux in 1898 and studied decorative sculpture until 1904.Read…
-
Beautiful Butterfly & Moth Illustrations from Dru Drury 1837
Dru Drury (4 February 1724 – 15 December 1803) was a British collector of natural history specimens and an entomologist. He had samples collected from across the world through a network of ship’s officers and collectors, including Henry Smeathman. Read More →
-
Illustrator reimagines Disney princesses as modern career women
Matt Burt – a North Carolina-based graphic designer decided to do a new take on the classic Disney princesses by redrawing them as hard-working modern career women.Read More →
-
Alma Haser – Within 15 Minutes
Within 15 Minutes – The average time between twins when they are born Alma Haser has always found identical twins fascinating, as do most people. It is the incredible realisation that there are two versions of the exact same person, hard to tell apart, unless they wear different clothes or hairstyles…Read More →
-
Louis Sparre (1866 – 1964) Swedish furniture designer
He was born in Gravellona Lomellina, Italy. He was the son of Pehr Ambjörn Sparre af Söfdeborg (1828–1921) and Teresita Adèle Josefa Gaetana Barbavara (1844–1867). His father had served as head of the banknote printing company for the Sveriges Riksbank. He spent his early childhood with his mother at Villa Teresita in Gravellona while his…
-
Jean Paul Langlois pop and pulp culture
A selection of work by Métis artist Jean Paul Langlois from Vancouver Island, currently based in East Vancouver. Informed by pop and pulp culture, particularly Westerns, 70s sci-fi and Saturday morning cartoons, Langlois plays with ultra-saturated colours and motifs as a way of grappling with a sense of alienation from his own cultural backgrounds —…
-
Flavours of the World: Digital Art by Omar Aqil & Povilas Daknys
Pakistani CGI artist Omar Aqil and Lithuanian art director Povilas Daknys worked in collaboration to create this impressive series of artworks for Expedia, featuring the unique cuisines of 7 different countries.Read More →
-
Scottish Artist Margaret C. Cook’s -Illustrations for Whitman
“Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death…” When thirty-six-year-old Walt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass in the summer of 1855, having poured the whole of his being into this unusual and daring labor of love, it fell upon unreceptive and downright hostile ears — a rejection that devastated the young poet.Read More →
-
Harue Koga delightful illustrations and paintings ♥︎
. He dropped out of junior high school to pursue a career as a painter, and in 1912, he relocated to Tokyo. He studied at the Taiheiyoga-institute kai’s and then the Japan Watercolor Painting Society’s institute. Koga became a priest in 1915 and studied Buddhism at Taisho University. Read More →
-
Lively and Imaginary Worlds in Illustration
Jeannie Phan, a Toronto-based illustrator, is inspired by varied landscapes, plant life, and daily activities. After that, she applies a fantasy, delicate surrealism filter to her drawings, combining identifiable subjects and abstract perspectives for a skewed yet lively finish.Read More →
-
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895 – 1946) Hungarian Designer – Applied Arts
In Budapest, he studied law, while elsewhere, he studied sketching and painting. During World War I, he began drawing and became interested in Kasimir Malevich and El Lissitzky. Read More →
-
Georges Lepape (1887 – 1971) French painter & illustrator
Lepape’s work blends orientalist elements with flowing lines, vibrant colours, and graphic stylizations reminiscent of Alphonse Mucha, Erté, Gustav Klimt, and Henri de Toulouse-Art Lautrec’s Nouveau movement. Read More →
-
Jean Jullien’s Smiling Surfboards
In a new series of minimalist illustrated surfboards, French artist Jean Jullien brings his distinctive cartoonish characters.Read More →
-
Illustrator Charlotte Edey creates soft yet bold dream-like worlds
Charlotte Edey is a British printing, textile and embroidery artist & illustrator. Her interdisciplinary discovery of the intersections of identity and the spiritual reveals the symbolism and myth within her work. Womxn’s experience of colour is centred in her commentary on the politics of space.Read More →
-
Total Control, illustration by Andrew Fairclough
Andrew Fairclough is an Australian illustrator, designer and art director based in Los Angeles. KINDRED STUDIOIllustration. Design. Art Direction. ForgedRead More →
-
Embroidered Illustrations by R.Masha
Embroidered Illustrations by R.Masha Beautifully crafted embroidered artworks by Russian artist R.Masha . Embroidered Illustrations by R.Masha | InspirationRead More →
-
Everyday Digital Art by Kurt Chang
Kurt Chang is an artist based in Los Angeles, CA, USA, he has been sharing pretty illustrations via his Behance. With this never-ending pandemic, I have noticed an increase in ‘digital art’ projects being shared.Read More →
-
Cracked Portraits by Taisuke Mohri
‘Cracked Portraits’ is an ongoing series of illustrations by Japanese artist Taisuke Mohri. The realistic hand-drawn portraits are overlaid with a pane of cracked glass, which contributes to the ethereal, surrealistic aspect of these artworks.Read More →
-
Retro-futuristic Illustrations by Tishk Barzanji
Tishk Barzanji is a visual artist based in London, United Kingdom. The work of Tishk Barzanji touches on the modernism movement, and surrealism. Inspired by his childhood in Kurdistan, and later moving to London in 1997. Read More →
-
Drawings of Daily Resistance from the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott
In the spring of 1956, two young artists from Brooklyn noticed that something momentous was happening in the South.Read More →
-
Lindsay Stripling – San Francisco based illustrator
Lindsay Stripling is a San Francisco based artist and illustrator I really admire and whose work I’ve really enjoyed watching develop as she also made the transition to full-time illustrator. I admire is that Lindsay has stayed true to her own style and originality.Read More →
-
Jérôme Lagarrigue’s powerful portraits of Brooklyn’s African-American community
Jerome Lagarrigue was born in 1973 to a French father and an American mother, and was raised in Paris.Read More →
-
Realistic Ballpoint Pen Drawings from African Artist Enam Bosokah
Without the use of fancy filters or expensive materials, Ghanaian Artist Enam Bosokah makes striking art with only the use of a ballpoint pen. You can see more of his work on his Instagram Page.Read More →
-
Surreal futuristic illustrations by Oska
Oska is a graphic designer and illustrator from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He has developed an original style of surreal-futuristic compositionsRead More →
-
Yumi Kitagishi maze of underground homes
Yumi Kitagishi is a Tokyo-based illustrator known for her striking harmony of colors, hand-drawn style, and imaginative characters, reminiscent of children’s picture books. One of her specialties is her creation of full, rich, miniature worlds.Read More →
-
The illustrator who draws on cats
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats: with illustrationsRead More →
-
Korean Illustrator Draws Intimate Illustrations So Well You Can Almost Feel It
Yang Se Eun is a South Korean illustrator, who started drawing cartoons from the early age of 4. She is best known for her lovely, sensual couple illustrations, drawn in Photoshop. “I do all of my drawings with Photoshop.Read More →
-
Star Wars Illustrations by Bev Johnson
Star Wars Illustrations by Bev Johnson Inspired by ‘The Force Awakens’ and ‘The Last Jedi’, LA-based visual development artist andRead More →
You may also be interested in
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts 250 years of education in the arts
For more than 250 years, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (Danish: Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi) has provided education in the arts, playing a role in Denmark’s art growth. On March 31 1754, the Royal Danish Academy of Portraiture, Sculpture, and Architecture in Copenhagen was opened and given to King Frederik V on his 31st birthday.
Royal Academy of the Arts
They have a lot in common with museums and other galleries, but as an academy they have a wider position to play – to encourage not just the appreciation and understanding of art, but also its practise. Like the founders of the Academy, they are still led by many of the greatest artists and architects of the day.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.