PORTRAIT OF BARBARA COMYNS
oil on canvas
82.5 x 65.5cm; 32 1/2 x 25 3/4in
(unframed)

The painter and writer Barbara Comyns (1907-1992) was born in Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire and attended Heatherley School of Fine Art in London. She exhibited alongside her first husband, John Pemberton, with the London Group in 1934 and counted Augustus John and Dylan Thomas among her aquaintances. After the breakdown of her first marriage and subsequent relationship with Arthur Price, Comyns became a cook at a country house in Hertfordshire and began to write a series of vignettes about her childhood. She returned to London with her two children in 1942 and married MI6 agent Richard Strettell Comyns Carr, whose boss was Kim Philby and colleague was Grahame Greene. Greene encouraged Comyns' writing, but due to his association with Philby, Comyns Carr was obliged to quit MI6, and the couple moved to Spain. Comyns subsequently published a string of very successful novels, including Sisters by the River (1947), Our Spoons Came from Woolworths (1950), Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead (1954) and The House of Dolls (1989).