Nan Youngman in Cambridge with Robjn Cantus

Wed 25 June 2025

David Parr House

Nan Youngman was an artist who lived most of her life in Cambridge. Together with her partner, Betty Rea they had moved to Huntingdon during the war, originally living in a caravan and then later, moving to Godmanchester and then Papermills, by the Leper Chapel on Newmarket Road.

She was a bold educator who strived to change the perception of art in schools from a pastime into a necessity. She worked for Henry Morris the pioneer of the Village College and who had employed Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and his business partner Maxwell Fry to design Impington Village College.

Nan Youngman founded Pictures for Schools, a series of exhibitions were the counties of England were invited to buy paintings by the best artists in Britain, and later on prints. These works would then be hung in schools to inspire children and worked in with other lessons on education.

In Cambridge they met and had many connections, with friends like Tirzah Garwood, Elisabeth Vellacott, Lucy Carrington Wertheim and Bryan Robertson, who ran the gallery at Heffers bookshop for a time. It was due to Robertson’s intervention that Nan and her friends set up the Cambridge Society of Painters and Sculptors.

Together with many more people, they helped make Cambridge a more artistic place in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

Robjn Cantus is a writer, collector and researcher based on the edge of Cambridge. Robjn is known for his detailed work on 20th-century British art and artists. His published books include Nan Youngman & Pictures for Schools (forthcoming, 2025), Great Bardfield Illustrated: A Bibliographic List (2024), Looking at Life in an English Village: Edward Bawden & Great Bardfield (2022) and Before and After Great Bardfield (2021).

The talk will be followed by a Q&A, light refreshments and the chance to purchase a signed copy of Robjn's new book at 10% discount on the night. Please note, by purchasing a copy of the book with your ticket you get a 15% discount on the book.

Cost: £10 (£31.50 with signed book)