Phyllis Ginger

Ginger was educated at the Tiffin School for Girls at Kingston on Thames and studied art in the evening classes at the Kingston School of Art and Richmond School of Art under S.R. Badmin where she became interested in etching and was recommended to attend evening classes at the Central School, where she was taught by W.P. Robins. In 1937 she won a scholarship and became a full time student under Clarke Hutton and John Farleigh, who inspired her to become an illustrator. Through them she won commissions to do colour lithographs for Noel Carrington's Penguin and Puffin Books, publishing 'Alexander the circus pony' in 1943, which she wrote and illustrated. She was one of several contributing illustrators to the Oxford University Press series 'Recording Britain', for which she produced a range of watercolours. She was elected ARWS (1952) and RWS (1958). She met her future husband, the silversmith and metalworker Leslie Durbin, when they were both students at the Central School, and she returned to etching after her family had grown up. In 2006 her children presented the Museum and Contemporary Collection at Central Saint Martins with a collection of her work which, although not catalogued yet, is available for research.
Author: SB