Background
Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes was born on 18 August 1901 in Bickley, Kent.
Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes was born on 18 August 1901 in Bickley, Kent.
In about 1921 she attended the Beckenham School of Art, and in 1922 enrolled at Leon Underwood"s Brook Green School of Painting and Sculpture, where other students included Eileen Agar, Raymond Coxon, Henry Moore and Blair Hughes-Stanton, whom she married in 1926. They separated in 1931, and were divorced in 1933.
Her parents, Louis August Hermes and Helene, née Gerdes, were from Altena, near Dortmund, Germany. Hermes exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1934, and showed at the Venice International Exhibition in 1939. In 1937 Hermes produced a commission for the British Pavilion at the Paris World Fair.
She worked in Canada from 1940 to 1945.
She taught wood and lino block printing at the Royal Academy Schools, from 1966. She was elected associate to the Royal Academy in 1963, a full member in 1971 and was awarded an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1981.
Her work is in many public collections including the Tate, and the National Portrait Gallery. 1967 Bronzes and Carvings, Drawings, Wood Engravings, Wood and Lino Block Cuts, 1924–1967 Whitechapel Art Gallery
2008 North House Gallery.