11 Facts About Betty Rea

Elizabeth Marion Rea was an English sculptor and educationalist.

Betty Rea's father was Dr Arthur Bevan and her mother's maiden name was Barnardo; Dr Thomas John Barnardo was her great-uncle.

Betty Rea was educated at Downe House School and began to study painting at the Regent Street Polytechnic in 1922, almost at once changing to sculpture and transferring her studies to the Royal College of Art in 1924.

Betty Rea was a founding member of Artists' International Association, and served as secretary from 1934 to 1936.

Betty Rea was an active member of the Communist Party Artists group, the Artists' Refugee Committee, as well as Chair of the Arts Peace Campaign.

For most of the war, Betty Rea taught painting and model-making in evacuated children's homes in Huntingdon and other villages in the surrounding Cambridgeshire countryside.

Betty Rea set up home with her colleague, Nan Youngman, first in a caravan in the grounds of Hinchingbrooke House, then in Godmanchester, and in 1946 at 'Papermills' in Cambridge.

From 1949 Betty Rea taught sculpture at Homerton College, continuing this part-time until 1964, she worked for some years as craft examiner for the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.

Betty Rea's 1959 Stretching Figure, was described by Gillian Whiteley as "expressing the diverse emotions, activities, and grace of youth".

Betty Rea's work is held in many collections, including Leeds Museums and Galleries; various education authority collections; Cambridge Institute of Education; University of Warwick; Hockerill College, Bishop's Stortford; Harlow Art Trust; Herbert Museum and Art Gallery, Coventry.

Betty Rea exhibited annually with Cambridge Society of Painters and Sculptors from 1955.