Charles Mahoney:
Room at the Queens Hotel, Ambleside, circa 1940
Framed (ref: 10401)

Watercolour and pen & ink

10 1/2 x 15 9/10 in. (26.8 x 40.4 cm)

Tags: Charles Mahoney Pen pen and ink pencil watercolour architecture interiors Hidden Gems - Interiors

Provenance: The Artist's family

Late in 1940 The Royal College of Art was evacuated to Ambleside in the Lake District; Mahoney and Percy Horton were among the male staff. The students were housed in two hotels, men at The Queens and women at The Salutation; Mahoney was resident master in charge at the men’s hostel. 

In spite of requisitioning two hotels, conditions for the Royal College of Art students were cramped. The majority of space was required for accommodation leaving precious little room for the studios which were mostly set up in lower rooms and suffered from lack of light.

Whilst at Ambleside, Mahoney became engaged to Dorothy Bishop, a calligraphy tutor from the Design School of the Royal College of Art. They were married in September 1941. 

For a fuller account of this period see biographical essay, pp and The Artist as Evacuee, The Royal College of Art in the Lake District, 1940-45, Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, Grasmere 1987.