{{short description|English painter (1907-2005)}} {{Use British English|date=June 2016}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2016}} {{Infobox artist | name = Phyllis Ginger | birth_date = {{birth date|1907|10|19|df=y}} | birth_place = New Malden, Surrey, England | death_date = {{death date and age|2005|4|3|1907|10|19|df=y}} | death_place = Kew, London, England | field = Painting, drawing | training = {{unbulleted list|Kingston School of Art| Richmond School of Art| Central School of Art and Design}} | website = {{URL|phyllisginger.co.uk}} }}
'''Phyllis Ethel Ginger''' (19 October 1907 – 3 May 2005) was a British artist and illustrator who, although she had a long career in several different media, is now best known for the topographical watercolours she produced during the Second World War for the Recording Britain project.
Ginger was also a book illustrator and designer of graphic advertisements and book covers.<ref name=Harpers>{{cite web |url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O139619/design-for-cover-of-harpers-drawing-ginger-phyllis-e/|title=Design for cover of 'Harpers's Bazaar Coronation number' |access-date=15 June 2016|work= Victoria & Albert Museum}}</ref>
==Biography== Ginger was born in New Malden, Surrey, and attended the Tiffin Girls' School in Kingston upon Thames, where she showed some aptitude for art and attended evening classes at Kingston School of Art. Although her father, who worked for the Post Office, was an amateur artist her parents persuaded Ginger of the need for a more conventional career and she spent some years working as a junior civil servant.<ref name=MEvans>{{cite web |author=Magdalen Evans|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/phyllis-ginger-490125.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/phyllis-ginger-490125.html |archive-date=26 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Obituaries: Phyllis Ginger |date=9 May 2005|access-date=14 June 2016|work= The Independent}}</ref> In 1932, Ginger enrolled at the Richmond School of Art and then began taking evening classes at the Central School of Art and Design.<ref name="BuckmanVol1">{{cite book|author=David Buckman|publisher=Art Dictionaries Ltd|year=1998|title=Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 1, A to L |isbn=0-95326-095-X}}</ref> Aged 30, she won a scholarship which allowed her to attend the Central School on a full-time basis until 1939.<ref name=MEvans/><ref name=UWAC>{{cite web |author=Elizabeth Dooley|url=http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/art/artist/phyllissginger |title=Phyllis Ginger|date=24 March 2009 |access-date=8 October 2016|work=University of Warwick Art Collection}}</ref><ref name="GMWaters">{{cite book|author=Grant M. Waters|publisher=Eastbourne Fine Art|year=1975|title=Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950}}</ref>
In 1938 she exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time and in 1939 joined the Senefelder Club and also the Allied International Artists group, with which she showed twice.<ref name=GSanders>{{cite web |author=Gill Sanders|url= https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/aug/10/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1|title=Phyllis Ginger: Watercolour recorder of wartime Britain |date=10 August 2005|access-date=14 June 2016|work= The Guardian}}</ref> Her work began to attract international attention.
In 1939 she was commissioned to paint a picture of a London bridge as a gift for the retiring American ambassador to London and the Library of Congress purchased her lithograph, ''Snow Day at St Bartholomew's Hospital''.<ref name=MEvans/>
During World War Two, Ginger worked for the Recording Britain project which aimed to produce a visual record of buildings and landscapes considered "at risk", either from wartime bombing or urbanization and development. Several of the watercolours Ginger produced, such as her depictions of the Council House, Bristol and of Catherine Place in Bath include elements of bomb damage. American servicemen feature in her pictures of Cheltenham while a barrage balloon is visible in one of the three paintings she made of Regent's Park during the conflict.<ref name=MEvans/><ref name="Domesday">{{cite book|author=David Mellor, Gill Saunders & Patrick Wright|publisher=David & Charles|year=1990|title=Recording Britain A Pictorial Domesday of pre-war Britain|isbn=0-7153-9798-2}}</ref> During the Blitz, Ginger painted the scene at the Goldsmiths' Hall in London after it had been damaged by bombing and both the War Artists' Advisory Committee and the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths acquired versions of the painting.<ref name=WAApg>{{cite web |url=http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1050001026 |title=War artist archive, Phyllis Ginger |access-date=14 June 2016|work= Imperial War Museum}}</ref>
In 1946, Ginger returned to London, having moved to Keynsham near Bristol and then Marlow during the War and resumed her commercial career. In 1947 she illustrated Joan Lamburn's book ''The Mushroom Pony'' which was published by Noel Carrington, the founder of Puffin Books. In 1943, Ginger wrote and illustrated a children's book ''Alexander, the Circus Pony'', also for Puffin.<ref name="Horne">{{cite book|author=Alan Horne|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1994|title=The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators |isbn=1-85149-1082}}</ref> She produced illustrations, beginning in 1941 with ''A Farm in Normandy'', for several books by the author Madeleine Henrey.<ref name=MEvans/><ref name="Horne"/> In 1947, Ginger produced a colour lithograph, ''Town Centre'', for the School Prints series.<ref name=TCentre>{{cite web |url=http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/art/artist/phyllissginger/wu0580 |title=''Town Centre'' by Phyllis Ginger |date=17 September 2013|access-date=14 June 2016|work= University of Warwick Art Collection}}</ref><ref name="RGarton">{{cite book|author=Robin Garton|publisher=Garton & Co / Scolar Press|year=1992|title=British Printmakers 1855-1955 A Century of Printmaking from the Etching Revival to St Ives |isbn=0-85967-968-3}}</ref> In 1952 she was elected to Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, she exhibited with them for the rest of her life and was the featured artist in their 1990 Spring Exhibition.<ref name="BuckmanVol1"/> In the 1970s she exhibited a number of etchings at both the Royal Academy and with the Royal Society of Painter-Ethchers and Engravers.<ref name="Horne"/> Later in life she focused more on portraiture work.<ref name=GSanders/>
==Personal life== Ginger married the silversmith Leslie Durbin in 1940.<ref name="GMWaters"/> The couple had met when they were both students at the Central School and had two children, a son and a daughter, together. For many years the family lived in Kew in London.<ref name="GMWaters"/> Durbin died a few months before Ginger in 2005.<ref name=GSanders/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Art UK bio}} * [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=Phyllis++Ginger&items_per_page=10 Works in the Imperial War Museum collection]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ginger, Phyllis}} Category:1907 births Category:2005 deaths Category:20th-century English painters Category:20th-century British war artists Category:20th-century English women painters Category:21st-century English painters Category:21st-century English women painters Category:Alumni of Kingston University Category:Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design Category:Artists from the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames Category:English illustrators Category:People educated at the Tiffin Girls' School Category:People from New Malden Category:World War II artists