Rosemary Rutherford
Rosemary Ellen Rutherford (1 September 1912 – 20 June 1972) was a British artist known for painting and stained glass. She was born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, England, and spent part of her childhood in Broomfield near Chelmsford, where her father was a church rector from County Down.
She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and later taught in Colchester. In World War II, Rutherford volunteered with the Red Cross, drove a mobile canteen to military sites, and worked as a nurse with a Voluntary Aid Detachment unit attached to the Royal Navy. She was given a drawing permit by the War Artists' Advisory Committee to record the nurses and their patients.
After the war, she helped Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines run the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. She set up a studio at Walsham le Willows, where her brother was the local vicar, and designed stained-glass windows for churches in Essex and Suffolk while continuing to paint still lifes and figures.
Rutherford exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1937 and 1947, showed with the New English Art Club, and was elected to the Art Workers Guild in 1970. She died in Lambeth, London, in 1972, and a memorial exhibition was held that year at The Minories in Colchester. Public collections that hold her work include the National Maritime Museum, the Ingram Collection of Modern British Art, and the Imperial War Museum.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:07 (CET).