Billie Waters (1896-1979)

Born in Richmond, Surrey, Billie was a painter of flowers , animals, birds, still life, decorative panels and some abstract compositions in oils and tempera.

Waters studied at Heatherley's and Chelsea School of Art and at the Grosvenor School under McNab. She then spent five years in Newlyn at the Harvey and Proctor School in Newlyn from1926 to 1931. She worked under Proctor as an apprentice and learned a great deal form him.

She became interested in fresco techniques and began exhibitions at the Royal Academy from 1928, showing annually thereafter. She also exhibited at the Royal Institute, the New English Art Club, the Society of Women Artists and elsewhere.

In 1931, although she continued to visit Cornwall regularly, she gave up her Newlyn Studio and returned to London, holding her first one-man exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in 1933. She traveled frequently to France, Spain and Italy.In 1934 she was commissioned to execute a mural for the Knightsbridge Grill. She briefly experimented with abstract painting after meeting Ben Nicholson, but she is best known as a representational painter with a studied sense of design. Her subjects ranged from decorative animal studies to fine geometrical abstract compositions in oil and pencil.