Watercolour, pencil and charcoal on paper

Why we acquired this work

It was bequeathed by the artist in 1942.

The Artist

The artist arrived in Coventry from Battersea in 1907, daughter of an engineer and wife of T.D. Weston, drawn here by work opportunities. She was a student at Coventry School of Art around 1907.

A local designer and decorator, Eleanor Betts (practising as early as 1911), has been said to have been Florence Weston's pupil. Eleanor Betts was the aunt of Barbara Castle the socialist politician. Back in 1905 Florence Weston herself presented an oil painting she made of William Morris to the Clarion Fellowship, a socialist cycling group - so there is clearly more to learn about this remarkable woman.

From 1927 she was living at 38 Coniston Rd. She was a founder member of the Coventry & Warwickshire Society of Artists in 1912, exhibiting with them into the late 1930s. In the mid 1920s she was working with the CWSA Sketch Club and in 1931 was a founder member of the Coventry Sketch Club and well remembered for her constant attendance at their outdoor sketching headquarters at Leasow's Farm and Mount Nod Farm, inspiring everyone with her unbounded enthusiasm.

She published a book of line drawings of Coventry, and subsequently a series of ten postcard views of Coventry which were sold at Ward's art shop in Broadgate and at Winifred King's studio shop in Old Palace Yard. She would take a fortnight's painting holiday abroad each year - around 1921 in Brittany, 1923 Italy and around 1926 and 1935 Tangiers and Morocco, but her best known paintings are of old Coventry.

She had an adopted daughter whom she took into France on painting trips, even though neither of them spoke a word of French. Florence Weston's escapades were legendary. When she held an exhibition in London she strapped paintings to her front and back and drove down on her motorbike. She passed through a red traffic light, because she had never seen such a thing before. A policeman signaled her to stop but she thought he was waving at her. As happened in those days, she was hauled up directly before a magistate, of whom she took little notice and continued drawing. The judge fined her £5 for contempt of court and took her to dinner. She was no more distressed when she was caught in crossfire between government and rebels when painting in Algeria.  Here in Coventry she would climb tall ladders to make tracings of medieval glass in the old buildings.

Other works by the artist in the Herbert's collections

Nine watercolours of old Coventry were bequeathed to this city by the artist on her death in 1942, and further watercolours have come to the city as bequests subsequently.

In 1980 the artist's family most kindly presented The Herbert with a folder of her scrapbooks concerning historic local buildings, as well as a number of her drawings and prints.