Henry George Rushbury [commonly known as Henry Rushbury; also known as Sir Henry Rushbury, and as Harry G. Rushbury] was born in Harbourne, near Birmingham, England, on 28 October 1889. At the age of thirteen he was awarded a scholarship to Birmingham School of Art where from 1903 to 1909 he studied gold and silvermithing and mural painting and stained glass. In 1909 he moved to St Loe's, near Stroud in Gloucestershire where he was employed as an assistant to the designer and muralist Henry Albert Payne (1868-1940) for whom he designed stained glass and worked on a series of tempera paintings.
In 1912 Rushbury moved to London where he began working as a freelance artist and designer. During World War One he served in the Royal Flying Corps and later as an Official War Artist.
After the war he studied briefly at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, under Henry Tonks (1862-1937) in 1919. He subsequently worked as a painter and etcher. He also designed posters for London & North Eastern Railway (LNER), London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and British Railways (BR) and painted several pictures that were used as carriage prints by LNER in the 1930s and 1940s. In addition he designed at least one poster for Shell-Mex and BP Ltd. in c.1932, and illustrated at least four books - 'Paris' by Sidney Dark (London: MacMillan, 1926), 'Rome of the Renaissance and Today' by Renell Rodd (London: Macmillan & Co., 1932), 'Fenland Rivers: Impressions of the Fen Country' by Iris Wedgewood (London: Rich & Cowan, 1936) and 'The Story of the Horse' by A.J.R. Lamb (London: Alexander Maclehose & Co., 1938).
Rushbury first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1913 and continued to do so virtually every year until [posthumously] 1969. He also exhibited at the Abbey Gallery, Arlington Gallery, the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers and Engravers, the Goupil Gallery, Beaux Arts Gallery, Barbizon House, Brook Street Art Gallery, Connell & Sons Gallery, Colnaghi & Co. Galleries, Chenil Gallery, Grosvenor Gallery, Leicester Galleries, in New English Art Club in London; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Royal Scottish Academy; Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; and at venues in Rome. Australia, Canada and New Zealand. His first solo exhibition was held at the Grosvenor Gallery in London in 1921. His painting 'St. Paul's', exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1931, was purchased by the Chantry Bequest that year.
In 1937 he painted a series of mural decorations for Chelmsford Town Hall. During World War Two Rushbury served again as an Official War Artist in 1939.
He was elected a member of the New English Art Club (NEAC) in 1917; an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers and Engravers (ARE) in 1921; a full member of the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers and Engravers (RE) in 1922; an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1922); an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1927; and a Royal Academician (RA) in 1936. He was also made an Honorary Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1948. From 1949 to 1964 he was head of the Royal Academy Schools. In 1964 he was knighted for his services to art.
In 1914 Rushbury married the painter and embroiderer Florence Harriett Layzell (1894-1981).
Rushbury's address was given as 155 Finborough Road, London in 1913 and 1915; Heath Studio, North End, Hampstead, London in 1920; Burton Common, Petworth, West Sussex in 1923; 24 Wellington Square, Chelsea, London in 1924 and 1926; 8 netherton Grove, Chelsea, london in 1927 and 1932; Lower House Farm, Stoke-by-Nayland, Colchester, Essex in 1933 and 1946; 8 Netherton Grove, London in 1947; 6 St. Martin's Lane, Lewes, Sussex in 1958 and 1968. He died in Lewes, Sussex on 5 July 1968.
Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)