Brenda Rawnsley
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Squadron Leader Brenda Rawnsley (b. 31 July 1916, Oxfordshire - d. 25 June 2007, Milford-on-Sea, Hampshire) was an arts campaigner and arts education activist, as well as the Managing Director of School Prints Ltd. (1945-1971), founded by her future husband. She was a World War II Squadron Leader in northern Africa for the British Air Ministry.
Born as Brenda Mary Hugh-Jones, daughter of Llewellyn Arthur Hugh-Jones, Governor of Faiyum in Egypt, and Dulcibella Eden, a cousin of Anthony Eden, she was educated at Queen Anne's School, Caversham, before winning a scholarship to Oxford University, but left in order to live with her father in Egypt, where she led a glamorous life that revolved around the colonial scene of 1930s Cairo.
In 1939 Brenda enlisted in the ATS Officer Cadet training unit, but soon left to work for the Ministry of Economic Warfare in London. Through mutual friends she met Flt. Lt. Derek Rawnsley, who had made history by flying solo in a Tiger Moth from Australia to Oxford. In 1937 he had founded the Federal Union Movement with Charles Kimber and Patrick Ransome, seeking the unification of Europe to avoid war. Brenda and Derek married in February 1941, but he was immediately posted overseas in the RAF. By the end of 1941, Brenda was a Women's Auxiliary Air Force officer and her fluency in French, Arabic and Greek proved useful when in early 1942 she was sent to Heliopolis and later posted to RAF Ramleh in Palestine.
Following Derek's death in an accident in February 1943 Brenda worked with 201 Squadron, Alexandria and was subsequently posted to Algiers in February 1944 to work with General "Jumbo" Wilson, the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in the Middle East, and his personal assistant, Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly. After Wilson was posted to Italy, Brenda was sent back to England to work directly with Duncan Sandys, Churchill's son-in-law, forecasting the course of flying bombs (V1s) and rockets (V2s). In June 1945 she was dispatched on an intelligence mission to the German flying bomb factory in the Harz Mountains, and subsequently wrote a history of the flying bomb for the Air Ministry, leaving the service with the rank of Squadron Leader and a variety of medals in 1945.
In 1935, with the backing of Sir Philip Sassoon, Derek Rawnsley had set up Picture Hire Ltd., which hired out original pictures by contemporary artists, and School Prints Ltd., which aimed to loan sets of reproductions to schools so that children could learn about the world's great works of art. The young widow took over the business and set about revitalising it by focusing on original works by contemporary artists which would be sold at low cost, rather than rented. Within a year, despite scarcities and paper rationing, she had persuaded artists including L. S. Lowry, John Nash, Julian Trevelyan, Hans Feibusch and Feliks Topolski, to contribute works which she then set out to sell to schools, later expanding the scheme to include original lithographs, commissioned from artists to be sold cheaply to schools. With the support of Victor Bonham Carter and the architect Raglan Squire she put the plan into action. Her aim was to bring "good" art to pupils who might not have had access to a local art gallery or, if one was available, lacked the courage to enter it.
She knew little about art, but was a quick learner, and she enlisted an advisory panel that included the influential critic Herbert Read, Philip James, Dr. M. E. Gurney and R. R. Tomlinson, the Senior Inspector of Art to the London County Council. In her introductory letter to artists she wrote: "We are producing a series of auto-lithographs, four for each term, for use in schools, as a means of giving school children an understanding of contemporary art." The majority of the prints were lithographed directly by the 23 artists and printed by the Baynard Press in editions of around 4,000. In order to minimise the cost of framing, each picture included a decorative border, and they were distributed to schools in redundant cartridge cases bought from the Ministry of Supply.
In 1947 Brenda Rawnsley decided to expand the scheme to persuade six artists of international repute to produce prints for schools. Having enlisted Henry Moore, who produced one of his first lithographs, Sculptural Objects, for the scheme, she flew across France in June 1947, armed with innovative and easily transportable plastic lithographic plates called Plastocowell, developed by Cowell's of Ipswich (printers). She visited Georges Braque, who would only consent to be associated with the scheme if Picasso also agreed. Fernand Léger agreed, and on the advice of Picasso's dealer, Aimé Maeght and his financial advisor Jaime Sabatez, she flew to Golfe Juan where she befriended Picasso's chauffeur, who advised her to "bump into" Picasso on the beach. Picasso invited her to lunch, after which he was persuaded to participate for love of "les enfants du monde". She secured Raoul Dufy's participation, revisited Braque who relented, and secured a compliant but frail Henri Matisse, before returning to England. The launch of the European series coincided with Sir Alfred Munnings' notorious tirade against Pablo Picasso and Matisse at the Royal Academy's annual dinner in 1949. The series was not a commercial success, and Rawnsley was left with large debts and thousands of unsold prints. Although ultimately a failure the School Prints have been described as "one of the bravest experiments in the [UK] history of modern art".[citation needed]
In 1949 she married Geoffrey Keighley, by whom she had one son; they divorced in 1952. Brenda Keighley also continued the original idea of lending out works, expanding it in the 1950s to "Pictures for Industry", which offered 700 prints for display in factories and workplaces, and "Pictures in Hospitals". In 1971 The Observer agreed to sell the remaining stocks of the European series and the rest of the business was sold to Patrick Seale, the paper's Middle East correspondent. She subsequently worked as a librarian before retiring to Hampshire, where she died, aged 90.
