Delmar Banner

German born Delmar Banner married Brazilian-born British artist and sculptress Josefina Alys Hermes de Vasconcellos in April 1930. Although Banner was gay, which his wife found out about only shortly after their wedding, both joined a special love for nature and art, and they remained together until his death. They had two adopted sons.

Banner attended Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read modern history, and later studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Art, where he met his future wife. He painted mainly portraits and landscapes, many of them Cumbrian Fells in his adopted county. He exhibited at many galleries, and also at the Royal Academy. He and his wife regularly exhibited their works together. One of Banner’s best known portraits was that of his friend, and author, Beatrix Potter, in 1938. Banner’s wife Josefina died in 2005, aged 100.