Betty Rea

Background

Betty Rea was born in London in 1904. Her father was Doctor Arthur Bevan and her mother"s maiden name was Barnardo. Doctor.Thomas John Barnardo was her great-uncle.

Education

She was educated at Downe House School (in Kent at that time) and began to study painting at the Regent Street Polytechnic in 1922, almost at once changing to sculpture and transferring her studies to the Royal College of Art in 1924. Her teacher there was Ernest A. Cole.

Career

Henry Moore was a student teacher at the Radio Corporation of America at that time, and became a friend. The couple divorced in 1942, he died in 1954. Foreign most of the war, Betty Rea taught painting and model-making in evacuated children"s homes in Huntingdon and the surrounding country.

From 1949 she taught sculpture at Homerton College, continuing this part-time until 1964, she also worked for some years as craft examiner for the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.

Betty Rea died in 1965.

Achievements

• The children"s paintings from this time were included in several British Council exhibitions sent abroad and some are illustrated in Herbert Read"s "Education Through Art".

Politics

From 1934 to 1936 she was secretary of the Artists" International Association, founded in 1933, this organization sought to oppose imperialism, fascism and colonialism through art

Connections

colleague:

John Desmond Bernal

Friend:

Nan Youngman