Biography: SONIA ROBINSON RSMA SWA

Born 1927 in Manchester. Trained at the Manchester School of Art and in London at the Hornsey School of Art.

From 1947, worked as a freelance mural painter and then as a landscape painter exhibiting in London galleries. In the late 1960s, she moved from Hampstead, London to Mousehole in Cornwall, where she still lives and works.

She was elected a member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists in 1978 and acted as their Hon Secretary from 1994 to 1999. Her election to membership of the Society of Women Artists was in 1991 and these two bodies continue to have her enthusiastic support.

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In Cornwall she was also a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists and of the St Ives Society, the latter culminating after many years of membership in a very successful spell as their Chairman. She resigned from Newlyn at the beginning of the century and from St Ives in 2006.

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Sonia Robinson works in oil and in watercolour/gouache, finding inspiration both in her beloved Cornwall coast and abroad, especially in small French towns, always looking for the harmony of pattern, tone and light for her subjects. She was the first recipient of the highly-regarded Donald F Blake Award at the RI. In addition to being a regular exhibitor at RSMA, SWA and RI shows, she has exhibited widely both within and outside the UK.

 

Those who were fortunate enough to be able to visit the RSMA Centenary exhibition in the National Maritime Museum will remember the splendid row of banners leading to Gallery Three, all of them flying Sonia Robinson’s characteristic Cornish dinghy In shallow water.

Her work is mentioned in several publications: in A Celebration of Marine Art; in James Taylor’s Marine Painting; and in Tony Paul’s Great Textures in Painting. The artist herself contributed two thoughtful well-illustrated articles to the Leisure Painter magazines of September 2003 and April 2004.

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In October 2018, the Royal Society of Marine Artists made Sonia a Life Member in recognition of the unfailing and invaluable support she had given over 40 years of membership and involvement in their work.

 

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Paintings by Sonia Robinson SWA

 

CORNWALL

1. (Main Image) Tranquil mooring - oil, 43 x 36 cm 17 x 13 ins

 

2. Portloe Cottages - watercolour/gouache 38 x 35 cm 15 x 14 ins

 

3. Polperro - watercolour 47 x 35 cm 18 x 14 ins

 

FRANCE

 

4. Old Houses, Nontron - mixed media 44 x 38 cm 17 x 15 ins

 

5. ‘Chez Jacky’ - watercolour/gouache 30 x 38 cm 12 x 15 ins

 

6. Tourist Transport, Cordes - watercolour/gouache 44 x 35 cm 17 x 14 ins