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- Pearl Binder
- Also known as
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Pearl Binder
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primary name: Binder, Pearl
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other name: (Lady) Elwyn-Jones, Pearl
- Details
- individual; printmaker; British; Female
- Life dates
- 1904-1990
- Biography
- Printmaker, illustrator, painter, stained glass designer, writer and collector.
Born in Manchester, with childhood in Fenton, Staffordshire, to Jewish parents - her father a foreman tailor, originally from Slonim in Russian Poland. The family returned to Manchester where she attended high school after WWI. Left school aged 16 and worked as a clerk in a textile warehouse whilst studying graphic art at evening classes at the School of Art. Moved to London, 1925, to work as a freelance illustrator, attending lithography evening classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from c.1929. Married the anthropologist, Jack Herbert Drieberg (1888-1946) in ?1929 but the marriage ended by 1932 and she settled in Whitechapel, London. First solo show in England held at the Literary Book Company, Bloomsbury, 1929. She was involved in left-wing artistic circles and was a founder member of the Artists' International Association, 1933. In 1937 married Frederick Elwyn-Jones (1909-1989), socialist lawyer and MP for Stratford and West Ham, London, later Attorney general under Harold Wilson and Lord Chancellor under Wilson and James Callaghan. Three children: Josephine (b. 1938), Daniel (b.1942) and Elizabeth (Lou) (b. 1942). Visited Paris and Russia both before and after WWII and also travelled in Europe, China, Africa, Australia the USA and Pacific Islands of Rabi and Suva Suva, keeping diaries and notebooks. Author of many books including: 'Odd Jobs', 1935; Misha Learns English', 1942; 'Look at Clothes', 1962; 'Magic Symbols of the World', 1972. Her fascination for and involvement with London's East End Pearly Kings and Queens resulted in 'The Pearlies: a social record', 1975. In addition she illustrated some fifty books for various authors. Worked with Amal Gosh and City Literary Institute stained glass evening class to design and make armorial windows for the House of Lords. Lived in London and Brighton, Sussex, from 1960 and died there in 1990. As well as in the British Museum her work is held in the V&A Museum and her archive in the University of Brighton Design Archive.