Lynette Hemmant was born in London, grew up in South Wales, Australia and the Home Counties.àShe went to St MartinâÂÂs School of Art before her sixteenth birthday, graduated in 1958 and started working as an illustrator of childrenâÂÂs books for Hamish Hamilton, later OUP and other publishers.àShe illustrated several classics: DickensâÂÂs âÂÂChristmas CarolâÂÂ, Jane AustenâÂÂs âÂÂPride and Prejudiceâ and âÂÂThe Rubaiyat of Omar KhayyamâÂÂ, as well as more modern childrenâÂÂs authors.
She was commissioned to design a set of Christmas stamps for the Island of Guernsey and a cover for ReaderâÂÂs Digest magazine.àShe was listed in Best ChildrenâÂÂs Books of the Year and her work was used for tv storytelling in the UK.àFor many years she was a contributor to the magazine âÂÂCricketâ and its sister magazines in the USA and created several of their covers.àAlso in the USA, she was commissioned by the Unicover Corporation of Wyoming to paint the twelve months of the year in the English countryside for a set of collectors plates.
Her first solo painting show was in Italy (Bellagio, on Lake Como), after which she restricted illustration to work outside the book market.àLarger works commissioned included two overmantel paintings for an eighteenth century house in London and drawings, subsequently engraved on glass, for a 10 ft x 6 ft model theatre for an exhibition at the QueenâÂÂs House in Greenwich, London.àHer work has been shown in solo and shared exhibitions in the UK, Italy, Australia and the USA and is in private collections all over the world.
She has been interviewed and work reproduced in magazines in the UK, USA and Japan.àShe has been a demonstration artist for partworks, âÂÂThe Art of Drawing and Paintingâ (Eagle Moss) and a feature artist in a book on landscape painting (Windsor & Newton/Rotovision).àHer garden has been a constant source of images, as was the time she spent in Venice.àIn the winter she works on still life and hoping to improve summer work in the studio.
In the spring of 2013 she was asked to address students at the Birmingham School of Art and was created an International Research Fellow of the Centre for Fine Art Research of Birmingham University.
She welcomes visits to her studio in Camberwell, south-east London.