Life drawing of a seated female nude, July 1917

Winifred Broughton Edge (1896 - 1977)

RA Collection: Art

A pencil drawing of a seated female nude. The model is viewed from the side with her face turned to the front and her legs to the right with her left hand resting on her right calf. The drawing is signed by Winifred Broughton Edge who was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools as a student in 1913. In 1914 she won a bronze medal for a painting from the life and in 1917 she won the two-year Landseer Scholarship. She exhibited three portraits at the Academy in 1917 and 1918 but there is no further record of her work being shown here, including under her later married name of Lindop.

The inscriptions on this sheet are confusing. On the recto the drawing is signed by the artist and there is a further inscription on the lower right-hand corner which reads '30 hours / July 1917/J.B.C'. These are the initials of J. B. Clark, Curator of the Day Schools at the RA, indicating that the drawing was made in the Life Class at Burlington House. On the verso is another inscription stating that this drawing was for the "'Annual Exam / Feb 1918'. It is likely that Broughton Edge selected this drawing for assessment as part of her exam the following year but any discrepancy could also be explained by the general disruption to the Academy Schools during the First World War. The School of Drawing was officially closed during the war but drawing went on in the School of Painting which was kept open. The Schools were hit by a bomb on September 1917 and did not reopen until December of that year. Previous to that some of the rooms of the Schools had already been put into use by Red Cross workers and Dazzle camouflage artists.

In his Keeper's Report for 1917 Andrew Gow noted that the 'Male Schools' were closed in March 1916 and that the 'attendance and conduct of the Female Students was excellent, and though the majority were engaged in war work of some sort, on alternate days or afternoons, their diligence in the Schools was very marked. Drawing in the Painting School is now optional, as there is no Evening Life Class, and irregularities in the works for the Annual Examinations are unavoidable.'

The Annual Examinations for 1918 took place on 8 January, 21 February, 6 June and 23 July, which accords with the inscription on the verso.