Gertrude Hermes, RA OBE (1901 – 1983) was a British wood engraver, print maker and sculptor.[1].
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She was born in Bickley, Kent, of German-born parents, her father a textile designer and manufacturer, and her mother a painter.In 1921 she briefly attended the Beckenham School of art, and the next year spent some time in Munich, before beginning studies at Leon Underwood's Brook Green School of Painting and Sculpture.[2] [3] She won the Prix de Rome in 1925.[4] In 1926, she married Blair Hughes-Stanton, a fellow student at Underwood's school.[2] ; they separated in 1931.
She worked in Canada from 1940 to 1945. She exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1934. She showed at the Venice International Exhibition in 1939. She taught wood and lino block printing at the Royal Academy Schools, from 1966.[5] She was elected associate to the Royal Academy in 1963, a member in 1971 and was awarded an OBE in 1981.[6]
Her vision was austere, of what has been called "benign severity". She was teacher of wood engraving at the Royal Academy Schools until 1976. Her work is in many public collections including the Tate,[7] and the National Portrait Gallery.