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19 Facts About Bip Pares

1.

Ethel "Bip" Pares was an Art Deco illustrator, who designed at least 600 book covers, created iconic posters for London Transport and wrote and illustrated an account of her honeymoon in the Himalayas.

2.

Bip Pares's covers for British books were often retained for American publications, which was unusual practice at the time.

3.

Ethel Pares was born on 27 February 1904 in Clewer, near Windsor, Berkshire, the second of six children.

4.

Bip Pares's parents were Caroline "Eve" Evelyn nee Whistler and Basil Pares who had married in 1902 in Norfolk.

5.

Bip Pares's father was a surgeon-major of the Royal Horse Guards by 1906 and was mentioned twice in despatches in the First World War.

6.

Bip Pares's siblings were George Pares, Evelyn, Stephen, Basil and Constance who became an artist.

7.

One of her paternal uncles was historian Bernard Bip Pares, known for his work on Russia and a first cousin was plantswoman and photographer Susan Jellicoe.

8.

Bip Pares became the name she used professionally, even on official documents.

9.

Bip Pares studied at the Slade School of Art in the early 1920s.

10.

Bip Pares developed a successful career working as a commercial artist.

11.

Bip Pares produced posters for London Transport, Underground Group, and London Transport between 1928 and 1939 while working at the Clement Dane Studio.

12.

Bip Pares was an illustrator of numerous books and is thought to have produced at least 600 dust jackets designs for published books, particularly crime novels.

13.

Bip Pares created maps for the Daily Express during the Second World War having been recorded as enrolled in the Air Ministry ARP Camouflage in the 1939 Register.

14.

Bip Pares continues to work as a cartographer into the 1950s with her work published by the Sunday Observer and reproduced in the Sunday Herald in Australia.

15.

Bip Pares is best known for her commercial British art-deco style, although did work in more naturalistic designs.

16.

On 30 September 1933, Bip Pares married Alfred Trevor Gwyn Thomas, a physician, at St Mary the Virgin, in Horsell Surrey.

17.

Bip Pares then shared her flat with Eric Vernon Francis, a writer on politics and economics, and Frederick Elwyn Jones, later Baron Elwyn-Jones, the Welsh barrister and Labour politician.

18.

In 1938, Bip Pares married for a second time, to Robert Christopher Bradby, son of Henry Christopher Bradby, a poet and master at Rugby School.

19.

Bip Pares lived in Hampstead until her death in January 1977.