Giddy and guileless Grammar Girls Cartoons

Interhouse Athletics carnivals have long been a feature of school life, whether as interform or interhouse competitions. Artist, Isabella Richard, found these events stimulating content. She commented: ‘I was keen to experiment with all sorts of art styles. I was riveted by graphic designers including the Bauhaus School of Design, where form and function support the main dynamics of design’. During her time in Year 10, the class was studying block printmaking and ‘House Athletics’ shows her use of positive and negative space to create the background crowd cheering on the competitors. According to Isabella, ‘sports tunics and legs flying, magazine rep ready with the camera for a photo finish’ all produce a vibrant sense of movement and being in the moment.

1964 Artist Isabella Richard, BGGS December Magazine p37

Finally, and not least, we have this vibrant 1964 cartoon of an anticipated 1965 boarders’ life of leisure in the confines of their sitting room. The artist, Jill Lang (1965), explained that the sitting room was something new to the Boarding House and it was senior students who lobbied hard for this space and its design, a small concession in the confines of boarding life as it was then.