Marion Richardson, 1892-1946

Marion Richardson (1892-1946) spent four years training in Art Teaching at Birmingham College of Art and Design after gaining a scholarship in 1908. At this time Robert Catterson-Smith was principal of the school and advocated the use of mind, memory and visualisation, which came to greatly influence her future work.

After gaining her Art Class Teachers Certificate, her first job was at Dudley Girls High School. Here she started to develop her child-centred approach to art education that came to influence many others all around the world. She developed a progressive way of teaching art to children, believing that all had aesthetic capabilities if only they were encouraged in appropriate ways. These ways advocated the use of the memory and visual imagination in producing art works, through exercises like Mind Picturing, Word Picturing, Beauty Tours, Observation Studies, Experimental Studies and Pattern and Handwriting.

In 1915-16 she published a Drawing Syllabus which, although heavily advocating the use of the memory in creating art works, was very similar to the Standard Board of Education drawing programme. However, within a year the standard drawing methods e.g. drawing from geometrical shapes, natural forms etc that she had advocated in her book had been disregarded and her pupils were being encouraged to produce work with hardly any instruction at all.

At this time Richardson came into contact with Roger Fry who was showing children's drawings at an exhibition at the Omega workshops in London. Sharing similar ideas about art education, Fry and Richardson remained in contact for many years.

Around 1920 Richardson came to identify the role she saw for art teachers, which was very much about acting as a catalyst, giving encouragement and guidance rather than imposing taste and aesthetic judgements.

She continued to work at Dudley Girls High School full time until 1923 and part time till 1930. She then went on to become a teacher trainer at the London Day Training College and an art inspector for London County Council. She also continued to teach within various public schools and to specific private pupils.

Through lecture tours, exhibitions of children's works and various articles, her ideas about child centred art education came to be influential across the world, most notably in Canada and Australia.

From the guide to the Marion Richardson Archive, c1920-1980s, (Birmingham City University Art and Design Archives)