Quick Facts
Biography
Ada Swanwick or Betty Swanwick (1915 – 1989) was an United Kingdom artist, novelist and art teacher. She was head of illustration at Goldsmiths College and is known for her work for London Transport and an album cover for Genesis.
Life
Ada Elizabeth Edith Swanwick was born in Forest Hill in London in 1915. Her father, Henry Gerard Swanwick, was in the naval reserve. Her father did marine water colours. She was inspired by her father and her mother, Ethel Priscilla (nee Bacon) gave her pencils which she had retrieved from shipwrecks on the Scilly Isles.
Swanwick enrolled at Goldsmiths College at the age of fifteen and by 1934 she was simultaneously attending classes at Goldsmith's, the Royal College of Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts. She was a student of Edward Bawden. This academic activity continued until 1936.
Swanwick started to create work for London Transport in 1936 and she continued to create posters for them unitil 1954.
In 1945 she published the first of her novels The Cross Purposes in 1945. She published, Hoodwinked which featured pencil illustrations.
In 1951 the Regatta and the Rocket restaurants at the Festival of Britain included murals by Ben Nicholson and Swanwick. She would later create another mural for Evelina Children's Hospital in 1960.
The cover for Genesis's 1973 album Selling England by the Pound was a painting by Swanwick titled The Dream. The original painting did not feature a lawn mower; the band had Swanwick add it later as an allusion to the song "I Know What I Like" as Swanwick told them that she had not enough time to paint a new picture for their cover. Her drawings could take 200 hours to create and she had strong views. She was appalled to find that her students did not have to attend life drawing classes.
Swanwick died in 1989. Her life and the intriguing paintings that she made after 1965 are included in the book by her fiend Paddy Rossmore.
Works include
- The Cross Purposes (1945)
- Hoodwinked (1957)
- Beauty and the Burglar (1958)