Deirdre Henty-Creer

The artist Deirdre Henty-Creer was born in Sydney and was a self-taught painter, after a private education. She painted in both Australia and Britain. Her childhood was spent first living on a destroyer – which had been turned into a training ship by her father – and travelling to Java, Sri Lanka, Malaya and Fiji before settling in North Devon in the early 1930s. Deirdre was not the only Henty-Creer to embark on a career in the visual arts. Her younger brother, Henty, was trained as a cinematographer. He worked for films such as Thief of Bagdad in 1940 and The 49th Parallel in 1941, which was sponsored by the Ministry of Information. During World War II he was involved in the attempted sinking of the Tirpitz in 1944, an astonishing attack using mini-submarines. He was lost at sea, presumed dead, but the family had tried for years to have him recognized as a war hero.

Her sister Pamela also established herself as an artist and writer. Deirdre was accredited as an official war artist from 1940-45. She produced paintings of a soldier’s mundane everyday existence. Later she produced mainly colorful slices of street life in London and Nice, as well as from her various travel destinations.

In 1948, she was recognized as the youngest participant in the Olympic Games’ Art Competitions. Her painting Ski Lift (oil on wood, 51 x 61 cm) was traded on the art market as By the Ski Lift, Alpe d’Huez, France. The bobsleigh competitions of the 1968 Winter Olympics took place In Alpe d’Huez.