GRACE ANDERSON BATTISS (1892 – 1975)
Still Life
1941
watercolour on paper
57.5 x 39 cm
BIOGRAPHY
Grace Anderson Battiss was born in Klerksdorp in the then Transvaal (the town is now part of North West Province) and later lived in the Eastern Cape, where her father was a land surveyor. She won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Arts in London at the age of 16 and, being a minor, had to be chaperoned to England to undertake her studies. One of her subjects was heraldry and she later designed the coat-of-arms of the University of Pretoria. Back in South Africa, Anderson lectured at the Teachers’ Training College in Johannesburg and went on to become an inspector of arts at schools in the province. She met Walter Battiss at College and they married in 1940.