Debrett - formerly Lieut.-Col. (TD) TA Reserve, WW1 with Suffolk Regt. (despatches, DSO)

Leicester Galleries (web) Violet Muriel Baber Mispriss. Violet Mimpriss was born on 7 January 1895 at 15 Carson Road, West Dulwich and was educated at Dulwich High School. In 1914 she exhibited her first painting, a portrait of Dorothy Vernon, at the Royal Academy. During the first war she belonged to a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) at one of the hospitals attached to St.George’s, London, the hospital that had been founded by her parental grandmother’s brother, John Baber. She had won the Landseer scholarship at the Royal Academy Schools in 1914 which was worth £40 a year for two years and she eventually enrolled there as a student on the 24th July 1917. She also won the Arthur Hacker Silver Portrait medal, and graduated with her diploma in February 1923. After leaving the Academy Schools she continued painting in London, mainly miniatures and portraits for clients. She exhibited for the last time at the Royal Academy in 1930, a portrait of the Master Parson of St Dunstan-in-the East. In 1930 she traveled to Kenya and stayed with friends where she met Colonel Malcolm Forty Mason. Colonel Mason had served in France, being wounded 6 separate times, and awarded the DSO. On the advice of doctors he had moved to Kenya and started farming. They were married in 1931, but sold up the farm and moved to the Mombassa on the coast in 1940 because of his deteriorating health. During the Second World War Violet recorded the work done for the Allies in East Africa, and oil and two watercolours of these subjects are now in the collection of the Imperial War Museum. Colonel Mason died on 11th November 1946; shortly afterwards Violet was joined in Kenya by her sister and there they stayed until 1969. She painted many subjects during her time in Africa, including the Kibuya Nahoe Market, Kenya and the Zinzabar Museum. She also travelled to Italy to paint. Amongst her subjects is the town of San Gimignano in Umbria and Venice. On their return to England the two sisters first lived in Horseshoe Lane, Guildford where Violet became very interested in pottery, and subsequently moved to Burton Bradstock in Dorset. Their first house in Burton Bradstock was 27 Shadrack and the second was the Old Mill. Violet Mimpriss exhibited at the Royal Academy on six occasions, and also at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin and the Glasgow Institute. Violet Mimpriss died on 8 Jan 1987 and is buried at St Mary’s Burton Bradstock, Dorset. Public collections: The Imperial War Museum, London, Gun Drill Fort, Mombassa, Kenya (oil), Naval divisions at English port (watercolour), Heavy anti-aircraft battery, Mombassa (watercolour).