Objects of Substance - Giddy and Guileless Grammar Girls Acr

1964 June BGGS Magazine, artist Isabella Richard p23.

It is fitting to begin with art in the classroom. There are obviously a range of emotions depicted in students in this classroom with art teacher Mr Timmermans (“Timmy”) : concentration, boredom, puzzlement, all perhaps to counter the teacher’s apparent enthusiasm. In his time of teaching at BGGS from 1956 until is death in 1974, students were usually taught sitting at specially-designed art desks to accomplish their art practice, not always the best physical approach to draw or paint. Drawing and painting were then the mainstays of the art classroom rather than the wide ranging and eclectic artwork in current curriculum and times, although former student and artist Isabella Richard (1966) remembers being offered challenging art projects in this classroom.

Compare this image of the Art Studio in the 1960s in W14.