Edwin Oldfield (1907-1992)

Painter, lithographer, furniture maker, ceramic sculptor and teacher, Edwin Tony Oldfield, born Upton, Yorkshire. Showing talent, at 13 he went to Sheffield School of Art, winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Art - there 1928-31 - where William Rothenstein regarded his work as too much influenced by the French. Called up in 1941 he served in the Service Corps working on the Pluto pipeline to move oil to France for the Normandy Landings. After the war became deputy head of Southend School of Art, retiring in 1969. Showed at the AIA in the Festival Hall during the 1951 Festival of Britain. Won a silver medal for a chair at Olympia, influenced by Bauhaus and Swedish design, executed mural designs and Pictures for Schools. A retrospective was held in 1998 at Beechcroft Art Gallery, Westcliff on Sea. Exhibited posthumously by Sally Hunter Fine Art. Entry in David Buckman’s Dictionary of British Artists in Britain from 1945.