Hunter, Garcia

Garcia Hunter was a student at Glasgow School of Art from 1923-1927. Following graduation, she spent two years working in advertising in London before setting up her own studio at 65 West Regent Street in the 1930s. Following her marriage in 1941 and the birth of her daughter in 1944, she took a break from her career. In 1947, Hunter returned to work, working from a studio in her own home. Drawing illustrations for the Daily Record, The Bulletin (which was sister paper to The Herald) and the Daily Express, she also carried out advertising work which appeared in the Evening Times and the Evening Citizen. Hunter also won numerous advertising commissions from clients including department stores like McDonald's, Frasers and Watt Brothers, furriers like Whitneys and Morrisons and ladies outfitters including Pettigrew's and Daily's, sketching wedding dresses and lingerie for posters and brochures. She was perhaps best known for her Garcia Girl page, which was the brainchild of then-Daily Record editor Alistair Dunnet. She would go out to functions on a Friday night and then draw the best frock of the night and write her copy over the course of the weekend. Women would buy the paper on a Monday to see who had been chosen as that week's Garcia Girl. She said that the last drawing she did before the deadline came out the best, as the deadline gave her an edge. It was unusual for a woman to do what she did at that time. She continued working into her 80s, and died in 1990.

Source: Studio 58: Women Artists in Glasgow Since World War II (Glasgow: Glasgow School of Art, 2012).

From the guide to the Garcia Hunter illustrations, c1930s-1980s, (The Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections Centre)