The early history of aviation is decorated with courageous female pilots who fought incredible odds in their quest to reach for the skies. In this series, I am celebrating seven pioneers in this field from Raymonde de Laroche, the first woman to earn a pilot’s licence in 1910 to Amy Johnson, the first aviatrix to fly from England to Australia in 1930.
Each portrait is painted on hessian canvas, its rough texture allowing me to paint in a looser, more expressive style. For five of the paintings I have created custom frames: wrapping them in hessian and then painting them with details from each aviatrix’s favoured plane.
I have one more painting planned for this series: seven ATA women disembarking from a modified Avro Anson.
