“ St James' Church, Hemingford Grey, Huntingdonshire” by Alice May Greta Glynn (1887-1974)

"St James' Church, Hemingford Grey"
By Alice May Greta Glynn (1887-1974)
British School
Oil on Panel
Circa 1940's
Framed

Measures:- 
35.5 cm high x 46 cm wide (image)
49.6 cm high x 60 cm wide (framed)

Bears artist's label verso reading "Hemingford Grey / by / A.M.G. Glynn / River House / Hemingford Grey".

A very attractive work depicting the bend on the River Great Ouse at Hemingford Grey, on which can be seen the Twelfth Century St James' Church. The view here is particularly picturesque and was the subject of a number of landscapes by the distinguished Victorian watercolourist William Fraser Garden (1856-1921), who lived nearby at Hemingford Abbots.

The artist Alice May Greta Glynn (1887-1974), generally known as “Greta”, was born in Liverpool. Her father was Prof. Thomas Robinson Glynn (1841-1931) who was professor of medicine at Liverpool University. She came from a large family, her mother, Alice Leutas Griffin Glynn (1854-1930) was Prof Glynn's second wife (his first wife having died in childbirth). Professor Glynn was of Welsh descent and was buried at Tremeirchion in Flintshire. Greta Glynn exhibited at the Royal Cambrian Academy in the 1940’s. Little of her biography is known but it is hoped further research will be undertaken to fill-out her story.

Her address of "River House, Hemingford Grey" (also know as "Riverview House") is a substantial Grade II* listed property. Interestingly, it is where the celebrated genre painter Walter Dendy Sadler (1854–1923) lived from 1896 until his death. Sadler built an artist's studio here, which is still standing to the rear of the house. Around the time of his move to Hemingford Grey, Walter Dendy Sadler divorced his wife and was given custody of their five children who were raised in the village (including Walter Hammond Sadler (1886-1958) remembered as a famous landscape architect in the U.S.A.). During WW1 two of Sadler's sons served in the army and a daughter served as a nurse. It may be this detail which provides a link between Greta Glynn and the Sadler family.

Presented in an unusually fine carved beechwood and gesso frame with half lap and cross-piece jointed corners.