Watercolour artist V.G. Edney (1908-1980) lived in the Cambridgeshire village of Papworth Everard.
Her paintings portray themes of the times that are still relevant today, such as destruction of the countryside, homelessness, poverty, absurd bureaucracy, labour strikes and reduction of village services such as the closing of shops or the shutting of bus routes. These serious topics are all handled with a light and often humorous touch, with vibrant use of colour and a folk-art style.
Violet Gertrude Edney was active as an artist for 13 years from 1967 right up until her death in 1980, producing an estimated 800 of the 380 x 255 mm (15" x 10") watercolours, along with a handful of larger pieces and murals.
She held two exhibitions in Cambridgeshire in 1972 and 1976.
The Cambridge Evening News reported on November 15th 1976:
If people laugh at her paintings Mrs. Violet Edney feels she has been paid the biggest compliment possible.
An infectiously cheerful person herself, she loves to see other people enjoying the humour of her work. You might think that Mrs Edney, who lives at 2 Pendragon Hill, Papworth, had some reason to grumble about about life instead of being so cheerful. She has a spinal disability and did not walk until she was in her 20s. But she dismisses any mention of the subiect as "not interesting".
What Mrs Edney, now 68, is interested in is people and in her work she gently pokes fun at their quirks and eccentricities, picking out little touching or amusing details of life, sending up topics of the day.
She loves to sit in her car in Huntingdon market place while her husband Alfred is getting their shopping, watching people waiting for the bus or walking along the pavement.
"I watch them coming up from the shops and vou can almost see a person thinking."
It is the little, amusing details of human behaviour that she loves to observe and reproduce in her pictures.
"If I hear people laughing at what I have done it's the biggest compliment I could have. It's much more important than money"
After her death, many of her paintings were dispersed, but some stayed in an attic until 1995 when they appeared in an exhibition in Oxfordshire. These 173 paintings form the basis of the current Edney Collection.
Contact: edwin [at] edney.org if you have something nice to say or perhaps know something about the life of the artist. If you own some of her paintings and would like to share an image of them on this website for the general public to enjoy, then please get in touch.