Walter Edward WESTBROOK (b. 1921)

BIOGRAPHY

Walter Edward Westbrook was a South African artist who lived latterly in Kent, England. He was well known particularly for his watercolour landscapes inspired by the arid plains of the Northern Cape and Namibia, and later by the countryside of Kent and the English Channel.

Westbrook was born in Pretoria and studied art under Walter Battiss. Not recognised officially as a war artist, he nevertheless practised as a painter throughout his war years in North Africa, and in Italy where he was taken under the wing of Italian artist, Francisco Caprioli. Wartime works of his are exhibited at the South African National Museum of Military History.

Westbrook lived in Kimberley for several decades and was a member of the Bloemfontein Group, founded in the 1960s by Dr FP Scott. Together with artists Marianne and Alexander Podlashuc, Fr Frans Claerhout, Stefan and Iris Ampenberger, Mike Edwards and Louis Scott, Westbrook contributed two works to the 24 pieces that make up the FP Scott Trust at the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein.

He emigrated to England in the late 1990s.

SOURCE
‘Walter Westbrook,’ Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Westbrook_(artist).