Violet Hilda Drummond (British, 1911-2000)

St Paul’s Cathedral

Watercolour

33 x 43 cm

Signed upper right (visible in the photograph showing the framed painting).

Provenance: the Arthur Andersen art collection.

Here, the artist paints a sprightly view of St Paul’s, which rises from a sea of nondescript traffic and pedestrians. The mostly monochrome palette, gently highlighted with a yellow wash and white details, communicates the character of the city.

Drummond’s father, a Scots Guard, was killed at Ypres in 1914. Drummond and her two sisters were brought up by her mother and educated in Eastbourne and at Le Chateau Vitry-sur-Seine, a Parisian finishing school. After Paris, Drummond attended St Martin’s School of Art.

Later in life, she began writing children’s picture books – the most notable being Miss Anna Truly (1945) and her Little Laura series (1960 onwards). She also produced cartoons for the BBC. ‘Mrs Easter and the Stork’ – published in 1957 by Faber & Faber – was awarded the Kate Greenway Medal. Drummond later took to painting watercolours of London street scenes which have remained popular ever since.