Currently running at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery is a small exhibition of art by my great auntie Edyth, this being the centenary of her birth (she died in 1980). I believe it is to run until the end of the year.

Edyth was the eldest child of a coal miner, and when her talent and ambition became evident, the family put their financial resources into sending her to the Royal College of Art in London - indeed, she was the first girl from Doncaster to go there. In the 1940s she ended up in Shrewsbury and married into an artistic family, the Coles. Her husband's uncle Edwin was quite a famous local artist, and I have mentioned him before, with a gallery of his postcards here. Her husband disappeared one day (it is thought he took his own life when the family business foundered), and she lived the rest of her life struggling to make a living, but did survive thanks to her art.

Detail from a theatre scene and a street scene (Doncaster market)

The only work I have of hers is a pencil portrait of her brother, my grandfather, which must date from the 1930s. My grandparents used to have a large oil painting over their fire-place that was by Edyth - a forest and river scene, if I remember correctly, and I was always fascinated at how dark and brooding it seemed. The Doncaster Museums Officer very kindly sent me some photographs of some of the work on show, which includes some of the glass etching she did later on in life. If you happen to be in the neighbourhood in the next few months, why not drop in and take a look?

Edyth (c.1924) and her portrait of my grandfather, Ben.