The Art of Doris and Anna Zinkeisen

Philip Kelleway, Emma Roodhouse & Nicola Evans

Hardcover | 19.05 x 2.29 x 26.04 cm | 192 pp

Unicorn Press | 2021 | 9781913491819

This lavishly illustrated book celebrates the life and art of Doris and Anna Zinkeisen. The monograph charts the rise of the sisters from a childhood in Scotland, to their emergence as amongst the most eminent artists of their day in London, to a quieter yet still highly productive life during their twilight years in rural Suffolk. 

During their golden age from the 1920s through to the 1950s the Zinkeisen sisters enjoyed huge success and won numerous accolades, despite encountering sexism. Their paintings and design work, including posters, murals for luxury ocean liners, and costume designs for stage and film, are today emblematic of that period in British art.

The acquisition and subsequent conservation of a Zinkeisen for the Ipswich Borough collections are also reviewed here, aspects commonly glossed over in art history books. This publication is a must for anyone with a general interest in twentieth-century British art and design and wants to know more about these unjustly neglected artists.