Much loved Chiswick artist Joanna Brendon, MBE, MA dies, aged 80

Image: Joanna Brendon, who died last week

Joanna Brendon obituary

Artist Joanna Brendon has died at her home in Chiswick, aged 80. The well-loved artist was a former chair of Artists At Home and opened her home to show her work during the June open studios for many years with fellow artists Annette O’Sulllivan and Bobbie Kociejowski.

I knew Jo for the last ten years of her life. We met when she was organising PR for Artists at Home and I was just setting up The Chiswick Calendar. I was looking to find out who were the main drivers of good things happening in Chiswick and she was looking for publicity. We quickly realised we could help each other, and our professional relationship soon became a personal friendship.

Dartmoor Winter by Joanna Brendon

Image: Dartmoor Winter – Joanna Brendon

Artists At Home

As chair of Artists At Home she took the organisation, which had been created almost accidentally by a handful of artists down by the river, to the next level, as it grew into a well organised group that represented artists from a wide area, covering Chiswick, Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith.

She took it by the scruff of the neck and knocked it into shape, making sure that was well funded and well promoted, raising sponsorship from estate agents John D Wood for the printing of the booklets essential for would-be customers to find artists’ homes and studios during Artists At Home weekend in June, and promoting the range and quality of their work.

I didn’t realise this was just the latest passion project she had poured her hard work and considerable skills into. She said she ‘didn’t seem to make any conscious career choices, but relied on serendipity and it didn’t fail her.’

Glittering Pools No.1 by Joanna Brendon

Image: Glittering Pools – Joanna Brendon

A serendipitous career

She fell on her feet with a job as receptionist at the New Art Centre, a cutting-edge art gallery in Sloane Street, home for many of the top emerging artists in the sixties.

Kenneth Clark (of Civilisation fame) was a regular visitor to the gallery, as was his daughter Colette, who was about to start work on Margot Fonteyn’s retirement gala at the Royal Opera House. Joanna joined her and had a fascinating year working towards that one night in 1969. It raised nearly £100,000 in aid of the Royal Academy of Dancing.

At the same time, she was the Organising Secretary of the Joost de Blank Memorial Fund, an anti-apartheid charity. She organised an art auction at Sotheby’s to which Barbara Hepworth, David Hockney and Kenneth Armitage contributed.

The President of Margot Fonteyn’s retirement gala was the Earl of Drogheda, who lived in a street off Smith Square. As the restoration of St John’s church was nearing completion, he recommended Joanna to the Trustees as its first Director. “No job application, no equal ops, not even an interview really,” she said.

Image: Smith Square Hall, formerly St John’s Church – Prioryman, Creative Commons

The Smith Square years

She was to spend the next 16 years at St John’s, overseeing its transition into one of London’s major concert halls. By happy coincidence the building was isolated from traffic noise including underground trains, so it became the ideal venue for music concerts broadcast on BBC Radio.

‘There were so many highlights,’ Joanna wrote: ‘Rostropovich’s first recital in the West, stunning concerts in the famous BBC Lunchtime Concerts, premieres, EBU concerts going out to over a dozen countries simultaneously.

‘The Monteverdi Choir, the Schultz Choir, The English Concert, The Academy of Ancient Music, The Early Music Consort, The Sixteen – they were all regular performers at St John’s and helped to quickly put it on the musical map of London.’

There were some concerts remembered for the wrong reasons. One promoter complained she was obstructing creativity by not allowing mackerel to be set fire to in the aisle, which, he said, was integral to the composition. Both Lord Drogheda and Lord Goodman were written to, suggesting that she was dismissed, but he hadn’t reckoned on two very loyal champions.

In fact, the reverse happened. Lord Drogheda nominated her for an MBE.

Image: Back gardens – Joanna Brendon

Becoming a full time artist

While many were the beneficiaries of her organisational skills, her friends also valued her great sense of fun. As both the Conservative and Labour Parties had their headquarters in Smith Square, for the 250th anniversary of St John’s in 1978 she organised a tug of war between the two. Sadly, it was ditched because a General Election was called, but she had both sides signed up for it.

She retired from the job at St John’s with some reluctance in 1985, when she became ill, which she later recognised was the beginning of her autoimmune disease. It did not stop her studying for an MA in print making, but at the same time she was going blind in one eye.

With characteristic fortitude in the face of adversity, she decided to write her thesis on the question: Do Visual Artists Need To See? Exploring Alternative Perceptions.

Three prints from her Sightlines series are in the permanent collection at the V&A. A larger selection was displayed at the Saatchi Gallery, and the whole series is now on permanent display at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

After her degree she developed her painting and she was for a while the Artist in Residence at Brantwood, home of John Ruskin in Cumbria.

Towards Dartmoor by Joanna Brendon

Image: Towards Dartmoor – Joanna Brendon

“What she will be remembered for most is her loyalty and generosity”

And so to Artists At Home, which Joanna ran for ten years and for which she continued to organise the sponsorship and PR for another ten.

I love wandering about Chiswick going into artists’ homes and studios to see their work.

For The Chiswick Calendar Artists At Home provides an endless supply of interesting content, but Jo also gave me the benefit of her wisdom in how to set about finding sponsorship for our tiny new website, and it was that sponsorship from John D Wood that enabled it to grow.

Image: Jo receiving a Chiswick Calendar community award for her work with Artists At Home and a congratulationary kiss from broadcaster Julian Worricker at our annual party in 2020 

It was generous of her, and it is for her generosity that I think she will be most remembered.

Annette, who shared a studio with her for 14 years, told me:

“Jo was a very successful and talented painter herself but didn’t really blow her own trumpet. Very kind and extremely generous – always trying to promote other artists even if she didn’t know them.”

Jill Meager, fellow artist, said:

“She was loyal to all the artists and keen for us to have our voice. She had a great energy and enthusiasm, and she really wanted us to have our pictures seen.”

Jo was also a valued member of the Riverside Artists Group. She regularly contributed to the group’s exhibitions both online and in West London galleries. Sarah Granville told The Chiswick Calendar:

“Her expressive landscape based paintings were essentially about a place, rather than of it. She worked in series, so that one painting informed another, and the gestation period could be months, or even years.

“Nicholas Usherwood, curator and art critic, explains: ‘With a landscape subject matter that is often intensely familiar to her, Joanna Brendon’s bold, abstracting way of working creates paintings rich in dramatic feeling and entirely mysterious in character’. A 3-year old once said: ‘Do you use magic in your pictures?’.”

Torin Douglas, one of the organisers of the Bedford Park Festival, told me:

“Jo Brendon was a great friend, a force of nature and a tireless promoter of art and the Artists at Home studios event.

“We worked closely to coordinate it with the Bedford Park Festival so that it always fell in the weekend after Green Days, and it has gone from strength to strength.

“Despite being in constant pain, she continued to paint – and she created a wonderful garden in Emlyn Road before moving into Chiswick and creating a beautiful new studio and garden here.”

Image: Joanna Brendon – Photograph Donna Schoenherr

Courage in the face of illness

Jo suffered with Rheumatoid arthritis for many years, which developed a pulmonary fibrosis. She would be talking to you and pick up her coffee or move her leg and gasp and grimace with pain, and then just carry on talking as if nothing had happened.

She took dance classes with Move Into Wellbeing to stay as mobile as she could for as long as she could. Founder Donna Schoenherr told me:

“Joanna Brendon was my friend and an early member and supporter of our charity Move into Wellbeing®. She loved moving and dancing with us despite dealing with apparent pain. When she attended our classes she always brought a lovely open-mind and positive attitude.

“I found her art work to be fluid and beautiful, and her humour sharp and sarcastic.

“I shall miss her presence in this world and feel I lucky to have known her and to be inspired by her. A beautiful flowing landscape painting of hers hangs proudly in our home.”

As a role model for coping with chronic illness she was a hero. She had in recent years become a telephone volunteer for National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society.

She was supported by the Hammersmith Society of Friends (The Quakers) with whom she was becoming increasingly involved, as well as by her friends.

Evening – Cornwall by Joanna Brendon

Image: Evening, Cornwall – Joanna Brendon

Buoyed up by friends

Her close friend of over 25 years Chris was her constant travelling companion, enjoying painting holidays in Cornwall, and he was with her at weekends.

She never let her illness get in the way of her determination to do things. She took part in The Chiswick Calendar’s art exhibitions at the Clayton hotel until a couple of years ago and was planning to take part in Artists At Home again this year.

Image: Painting by Joanna Brendon

One last open studio

“She was such a force of life,” Bobbie Kociejowski told me. “When she went into hospital this last time, she looked me directly in the eye and said: ‘I’m going to take part this summer’.

“She had so much energy, and so much to fight against, I am going to miss her terribly.”

Bobbie and Annette will be holding their open studio at Jo’s house in Windmill Rd, as advertised in the Artists At Home brochure, showing Jo’s pictures alongside Bobby’s shawls and Annette’s jewellery as they have for many years, and raising a glass to her.

You can find the booklets for this year’s Artists At Home, 13 – 15 June, at Chiswick Library / The Italians Bakery – Chiswick High Road / Bell and Crown pub, Strand on the Green /  The Beehive, 28 Devonshire Road / Stitching room,10 Devonshire Road / Detour Cafe, 135 Askew Road, W12 /Arthur’s Coffee House, 1 Seven Stars Corner, W12 / Holland Park Cafe / Pavilion Cafe, Brook Green / Queens Head pub, Brook Green / Havelock Tavern, Masbro Rd. / Hammersmith Library, Shepherd’s Bush Rd. /  Neptune, Chiswick High Road / The Chiswick Salon, Grove Park.

Not something you’d usually add to an obituary, but a PR touch I think Jo would appreciate!

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