Helen Binyon: 21 interesting facts

Helen Francesca Mary Binyon (9 December 1904 – 22 November 1979) was a British player and author. She was afterward a watercolour painter, an illustrator and a puppeteer.

Binyon was born in Chelsea in London, her dad being the poet and scholar Laurence Binyon, and was educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School. Helen Binyon studied at the Royal College of Art in the midst of 1922 and 1926 where she was taught by Paul Nash and her fellow pupils included Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious. After spending some era at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, Binyon studied engraving at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1928 to 1930. Shortly afterwards she had a joint exhibition, with Bawden and Ravilious, at the Redfern Gallery in London. Between 1931 and 1938, Binyon taught part-time at the Eastbourne College of Art and plus at the North London Collegiate School. With her twin sister, Margaret, Binyon expected a travelling puppet theatre, Jiminy Puppets. During 1938 she worked for Robert Gibbings producing illustrations for the Penguin Illustrated Classics series, including an edition of Pride and Prejudice.

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During World War II, Binyon worked for the Admiralty drawing hydrographic charts. Later in the fighting she worked on the preparation of photographic exhibitions for the Ministry of Information and with served in the ambulance service. After the War, Binyon taught at the Willesden School of Art and then at the Bath Academy of Art from 1949 to 1965. A solo put on an act of her watercolours was held at the Grafton Gallery in 1979. Binyon’s raptness in puppetry continued throughout her simulation and she wrote two books upon the subject, including a 1971 survey of professional puppetry commissioned by the Arts Council. She after that wrote the first published volume on Ravilious and illustrated several extra books, including her fathers’ play Brief Candles and a series of books written by her sister Margaret Binyon. Her children’s photo album illustrations were often in pen and ink but she furthermore produced wood engravings for her supplementary book work. She was a devotee of the Society of Wood Engravers.

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