The Chelsea Society has proposed to English Heritage a Blue Plaque for Sir Henry Rushbury KCVO CBE RA, at 8 Netherton Grove, Chelsea, London SW10 9TQ where he lived and worked from 1927-1951. The present owner has consented. This proposal was requested by one of our members, Kate Lovegrove, who is married to Sir Henry’s grandson. Our proposal is supported by the Chelsea Arts Club, The London Sketch Club, Sir Charles Saumarez-Smith, Professor Sr Christopher Frayling, and the Council of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.
Rushbury came to London in 1912, to join Gerald Brockhurst at the Royal Academy Schools. Frances Dodd offered to teach him etching, and his drypoint etchings were so successful, that one collector offered to buy all his plates over 12 months.
He met and married the Chelsea born artist Florence Layzell in 1914, and became a war artist. Thirty of his works are in the Imperial War Museum.
Rushbury developed an individual style in watercolours, moved in the hallowed artistic circle of the time of Frances Dodd, Muirhead Bone, Ethelbert and Betty White, Charles Cundell and Alan Gwynne-Jones.
After the war he exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, Colnaghi’s, The Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Painter Etchers. The Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, Cambell Dodgson found his work masterful.
In 1927 he bought 8 Netherton Grove in Chelsea, and built his studio in the garden. He had been elected as an Associate Academician, and in 1936, was promoted to full membership of the Royal Academy. In 1938, he became Chairman of the Chelsea Arts Club.
In WW2 Rushbury was again a war artist and documented industrial centres in the North of England and Scotland. He stayed at 8 Netherton Grove during the war.
In 1949 he was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, and was knighted in 1964.
There is a catalogue of his prints at the Royal Academy.
We would like his daughter, Julia, to unveil the plaque. However, she is 95 so we have asked that the application be expedited.
