Dame Vera knew her onions in unsung passion as a painter
DAME VERA LYNN had a little-known passion as an artist who painted pictures of onions and whisky, it has emerged.
The singer is best known for her hopeful hymns which lifted the spirits of the nation during its darkest hour.
But a new exhibition reveals Dame Vera was also an artist who produced over 300 paintings during her lifetime.
A selection of works by the “forces’ sweetheart” are to go on show for the first time as part of an exhibition in the town she called home for 70 years.
The Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft is launching the exhibition devoted to its most famous resident, which aims to provide an insight into how she spent her time outside the spotlight, and her lesser known artistic interests.
Donna Steele, the museum’s curator, said the paintings are “mostly of the countryside, village street scenes and buildings”.
“Her later watercolours show a keen interest in botanical studies – flowers, hips, leaves, potted houseplants.”
The exhibition will showcase more than 100 personal items belonging to the star, including her wartime wedding suit and the surviving tier from her cardboard cake, from her marriage to fellow musician Harry Lewis in 1941.
Dresses from appearances on ITV and the BBC throughout the 1970s, including some from The Vera Lynn
Show, will also feature.
The signatures on two of her works shows the point at which she was newly married during the war, with the singer signing the names Lewis and Lynn.
Dame Vera’s daughter Virginia Lewisjones, 75, said that her mother painted frequently from childhood, using art as a method of escape and catharsis along with music. Ms Lewis-jones said: “She painted throughout her life, whenever she had any free time, and she was always very good at it.
“I think it was an escape route for her, another way to express herself as well as through her singing.”
The family own around 330 paintings produced by the wartime heroine, ranging from oils completed “as a little girl” to later watercolours.
Ms Lewis-jones said: “There is no way we can keep them all. We haven’t yet decided whether to sell them, but I’m sure some will be.” Dame Vera attended the Arthur Segal School of Painting for Professionals and Non-professionals in London, even after she had moved to Ditchling in 1944. Ms Steele said: “The philosophy of the painting school was ‘Everybody can learn to paint’ and ‘We copy nature.’ Segal, who was a Jewish man who fled from the Nazis to Britain, was particularly interested in light and form – what the eye can actually see.
“His classes were structured and he believed there were therapeutic benefits to this method in a social setting.”
She added: “I think they tell us that Dame Vera was a committed amateur painter with talent and they are evidence of her determination to learn and develop her technical skills as a painter.”
The exhibition of Dame Vera’s art will run from Jan 8 until April 18 next year.