Artist Info
Dame Eileen Rosemary Mayo
Dame Eileen Rosemary Mayo (1906 –1994) was an English artist and designer who worked in England, Australia and New Zealand in almost every available medium – drawings, woodcuts, lithographs on stone and tempera, tapestry and silk screening. She also designed coins, stamps, tapestry and posters, and wrote and illustrated eight books on natural science. While studying at the Slade in 1924, she followed evening classes in drawing, printmaking, historical costume and calligraphy at the Central School of Arts & Crafts. She learned lino-cutting from Claude Flight and the resulting print, ‘Turkish Bath’, was included in the Redfern Gallery’s ‘First Exhibition of British Linocuts.’
She later taught at Saint Martin’s School of Art and Sir John Cass College. Alongside doing her own work, she was an artists’ model for Bernard Meninsky, Duncan Grant and Laura Knight.
She became a member of the Society of Wood Engravers, and wrote and illustrated a series of books. She also exhibited at the Royal Academy and with the Royal Society of British Artists
She emigrated to Australia in 1952, where she taught at the National Art School in Sydney. She was a founding member of Sydney Printmakers. Her career in Australia included working on murals and designing tapestries and posters.
In 1962, she moved to New Zealand where she was on the Print Council of New Zealand and she taught at the University of Canterbury (SFA). Her last works were silkscreen prints.
