Burnley Express and News March, 24, 1943
BURNLEY ARTIST’S DECORATIVE FRIEZES
One of the exhibitors at the 18th annual spring exhibition of Lancashire art opening to-day at the Harris Art Gallery, Preston, is 23 years-old Miss J. Walmsley Heap, of Burnley, whose friezes of children at play are finding their way into war-time nurseries in several towns.
Miss J. Walmsley Heap, who studied with Mr. Noel H. Leaver, the Burnley artist, was sketching when she was nine. Her talent was encouraged, and, while competent with landscape and figure work, probably her outstanding achievement has been the bringing to the drawing board of the realm of fairies, gnomes and giants. A year or two ago we reproduced a few of her sketches illustrating a children’s book of stories, “Jeepy Jumbles,” which she herself had written. These created considerable interest at the time.
Her latest work at the Harris Art Gallery preserves the quaint freshness of her earlier efforts. It is not surprising that her drawings have become in demand at our war-time nurseries. One of her friezes “The Old Woman in a Shoe,” is in the Bank Hall Nursery. She has others in London, Liverpool, Leominster, Hereford, Bolton and Preston.
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