| Joan Hargreaves |
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Some of us who posed for Joan Hargreaves at the Working Men's College many years ago were astonished to learn that she was still teaching there right up to her death at the age of 86. In fact, she had to travel halfway across London twice a week to do that job. The following obituary has been reproduced from the website of Malvern Hostick, who was a colleague of Joan at the WMC for around 30 years. "Stopping her teaching and drawing from life was never an option," says Malvern. "It was as much a bodily function for her as eating and breathing". |
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Born at Whitworth, Lancashire, UK, Joan took a degree in drawing
and painting with a mural art diploma at Manchester College of Art,
attaining a fourth-year scholarship. Later, she was awarded a
Royal Scholarship on entrance to London’s Royal College of Art,
where she acheived a post-graduate degree in 1949. Early in her career she was a member of the Manchester Group. LS Lowry was a member too; an acquaintance whom she recalls attending meetings, and occasionally giving lectures after his rounds as a rent collector. The Group, chaired by another acquaintance, the wood engraver Margaret Pilkington of the philanthropic Pilkington Glass family, met at the Whitworth Art Gallery, also run by Margaret Pilkington. Joan exhibited regularly with the Manchester Group, at the Manchester Ballet Club, in travelling Arts Council exhibitions, and at the Manchester Gallery. She also designed murals for UMIST (Manchester). After settling in London her exhibitions would include those at The Royal Albert Hall, and with the London Group. She taught in various art schools and colleges up to degree level, and lectured on anatomy with movement at the Slade School of Fine Art Summer School. In fact Joan was an acknowledged authority on combining such disciplines; an expertise rarely found nowadays. These were encouraged for many years within her own course, 'Anatomy, Life and Movement' at the WMC, the only class of its type in London, perhaps in the UK. She attracted professional painters, sculptors, architects, and those studying within higher and adult education, and was been a long-standing Art A-Level and Art Foundation Studies course tutor. Joan carried on her own work, mainly drawing, in life classes, particularly the WMC life class. As a respected source on art anatomy and figure movement in drawing, she offered advice to students regularly. She continued to exhibit, with others and in one-woman shows. Joan Hargreaves ARCA, DA, NDD 1920-2006 |
| There are drawings by Joan Hargreaves on Malvern Hostick's WEBSITE |
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