Elinor Bellingham-Smith

British 1906 – 1988

Elinor Bellingham-Smith was born in London in 1906. A proficient ballet dancer and pianist, Bellingham-Smith had to give up dancing following an injury. She later studied at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1928. In 1931, she finished her studies at Slade and married English painter Rodrigo Moynihan.

Bellingham-Smith’s works were exhibited at the London Group in 1931, and in 1948, she had a solo exhibition at Leicester Galleries and began exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Art. She painted primarily landscapes and still life. She worked for both Harper’s Bazaar and Shell as an illustrator. Elinor illustrated the children’s book Candlelight Tales by Alison Uttley.

The Arts Council commissioned 60 painters to make large paintings, 114 x 152 cm or more, to be displayed at the 1951 Festival of Britain. There were five cash prizes awarded and Bellingham-Smith took one of the prizes with her work The Island. Ultimately the works were to be given to new hospitals, libraries, schools, and health centres that emerged after the war.

M.H. Middleton reviewed the Leicester Galleries exhibition of Bellingham-Smith’s paintings in November 1952, stating: “Miss Bellingham-Smith’s wistful, gentle paintings, on the other hand, delicately touched in with sad grey-greens, tug at the heart like memories of childhood. Her little girls have a lyrical elegance, as though Susanne Eisendieck had been crossed with Kate Greenaway. Her unpeopled landscapes evoke the enjoyable melancholy of the return from the Sunday afternoon walk with the dog, when there was rain in the sky and the wind lifted the birds from the meadow like the last leaves from the trees, and one thought of the fire in the nursery and crumpets for tea.”

During her career she exhibited at the Women’s International Art Club. After the birth of her son, John, in 1932, Bellingham-Smith and her husband had a busy social life. Their home became a salon to writers and other artists. In 1946, Princess Elizabeth was accompanied by her mother to the house six times to sit for Moynihan, Bellingham-Smith’s husband, who had been commissioned to make her portrait. Their evenings were often spent smoking and drinking in restaurants, bars, clubs or at parties. When he turned 20, John went along with them on their evenings out. John wrote the book The Restless Lives: The Bohemian World of Rodrigo and Elinor Moynihan, which was described by writer Frances Spalding as a “clear-eyed chronicle of a lost era, when high living, creativity and Bohemianism momentarily went hand in hand.”

After separating and later divorcing Moynihan in 1960, Bellingham-Smith lived in Boxford, Suffolk, and later in life, The Fens and East Anglia were featured in many of Bellingham-Smith’s landscapes. Bellingham-Smith died in Ipswich in 1988.

Works
A London Garden, Derbyshire & Derby School Library Service
Brambles, Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery
Bullrushes, Museums Sheffield
Burning Stubble, Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery
Dragon-Flies, 1947‑1948, Tate
Essex Field in Summer, about 1950. Sold at Christie’s in 2002.
Fields above Boxford, Government Art Collection
Girls by the River, Newport Museum and Art Gallery
Hedgerow, Government Art Collection
Low Tide, Putney, Wolverhampton Arts and Heritage
River Scene with Figures, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums
Sunset, Arts Council Collection
The Bonfire, Government Art Collection
The Fenn, Boxford, Arts Council Collection
The Island, Arts Council Collection
The Log, Sold at Christie’s in 2006.
The Sky over Wattisham, Arts Council Collection
The Tabby Cat, 1949, Sold at Christie’s in 1997
The Willow Tree, Harris Museum & Art Gallery
Winter Afternoon, Arts Council Collection