Biography for Joan Warburton (1920 - 1996)

Early Life

Joan was Born in 1937 in Edinburgh into an army family but grew up in England near Colchester. She attended a finishing school in Belgium and then, in 1936, began studying art in Brussels under Oswald Poreau.

Mid Life

Joan, known as 'Maudie', enrolled as one of the first students at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing then at Dedham, Essex. The Dedham studio was burned down in 1939, so the story goes by a cigarette of a fellow student called Lucian Freud and while the students were painting in the blackened ruins

Alfred Munnings, who also lived at Dedham, used to drive past crying "down with modern art". 

Later Life

After living in London with her husband for a number years, they moved back to Stoke-by-Nayland. Joan enjoyed numerous successful solo shows including exhibiting at the Royal Academy, the Ansdell Gallery, Leicester Galleries and Women's International