Joan Hassall - Biography

Biography

Born at 88 Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill, London, Joan Hassall was the daughter of the artist John Hassall, famous for his poster "Skegness is so bracing", and his second wife, Constance Brooke Webb.

Her letters show how close she was to her younger brother, Christopher Hassall, and his early death affected her greatly. She addressed him as 'Topher' in her letters to him, until his wife, Eve, objected, whereupon she switched to 'Bruth'. Her portrait of Christopher is now in the National Portrait Gallery.

She attended Parsons Mead School and then trained as a teacher at the Froebel Institute. Her experiences at a rough East London secondary school convinced her that she did not want to be a teacher. She worked as her father's secretary for two years and then attended the Royal Academy Schools from 1928 to 1933.

In 1931, to help out a friend because numbers for the class were dropping, she began evening classes in wood engraving at the London Central School of Photo-engraving and Lithography in Fleet Street, where her teacher was R. John Beedham. The discovery of wood engraving had a profound influence on the rest of her life.