Artist, illustrator, broadcaster, writer, poet, teacher and Scottish nationalist, born Gwendoline Meacham in Kent. She spent part of her childhood in South Africa; part in Kent, at school in Tunbridge Wells; and part at the family home Kippford, Dumfriesshire. Her father, Charles S Meacham, was a prolific artist, founding the South African Society of Artists with which his daughter exhibited; mother, Florence, was a painter of flowers; maternal grandfather, Samuel Peploe Wood, was a sculptor; and great-uncle, Thomas Peploe Wood, was also an artist. When Wendy married Ayr-based footwear manufacturer Walter Cuthbert in 1913 she signed works Gwen Cuthbert or G E C; after separation in 1940 she took her mother’s maiden name, showing as Wendy Wood.
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After school Wendy studied with Walter Sickert at the Westminster School of Art and worked widely on the continent. In 1918 she produced her first children’s book, The Baby in the Glass, also illustrating for Little Dots. She published and illustrated 16 books, two autobiographical: I Like Life, 1938, and Yours sincerely for Scotland, 1970. Wendy broadcast as Auntie Gwen on BBC wireless Children’s Hour in the 1920s, in the 1970s telling stories on television in Jackanory. Wood was a militant campaigner for Scottish independence, founding Scottish Watch and The Scottish Patriots; fighting a 1946 by-election; and in 1951 being arrested for incitement to riot. She showed at the RSA, SSA, Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, and was a member of the New Society of Artists and the SSWA. She had several retrospectives, including the Scottish National Party conference, Inverness, in 1984. The Museum of Childhood and Hanover Fine Arts, both in Edinburgh, gave her shows in 1999.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
