Louise Olga Mary Lehmann (married name Huson; 10 February 1912 – 26 October 2001) was a British–Chilean painter and graphic, costume and set designer.
Early life
Lehmann was born Louise Olga Mary Lehmann on 10 February 1912 in Catemu, to Andrew William Lehmann (1878–1970), a mining engineer and chairman of a copper mining company, and Mary Grisel Lehmann (). Lehmann's father was born in Paris to French and German parents, and her mother was Scottish. The eldest of three siblings, Lehmann was the sister of Monica Pidgeon, an architectural journalist and editor, and Andrew George Lehmann, a literary critic, writer and academic.
Initially educated by an English governess, Lehmann later studied at Cambridge School. In 1921, aged 9, Lehmann was sent to England where she studied at the Dulwich High School for Girls until 1926. Returning to Chile in 1927, Lehmann studied at Santiago College. Becoming a naturalised British citizen in 1928, Lehmann and her family settled in Lambeth the following year.
Awarded a scholarship to study at Slade School of Fine Art in 1929, Lehmann studied under Henry Tonks and Randolph Schwabe, specializing in theatrical design under Vladimir Polunin and in portraiture under Allan Gwynne-Jones.The Slade 1871-1971, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1971.Who's Who in Art, "Olga Lehmann", pp. 347-348, Michigan: The Gale Group, 2002. Awarded student prizes in life painting, composition, and theatrical design, Lehmann graduated in 1934.
Career
Her productive working life as an artist spanned almost six decades, from the 1930s to the 1980s. Throughout the 1930s she acquired a reputation in the fields of mural paintingContemporary Mural Painters: Miss Olga Lehmann. The Decorator, London, July, 1941. and portraiture.Spalding, Frances, Dictionary of British Art, Volume VI: 20th Century Painter and Sculptors, "Olga Lehmann", p. 295, Suffolk: The Antique Collector's Club Ltd., 1990, . She exhibited her work at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1933, and with the London Group in 1935.The Royal Society of British Artists: An Open Assembly, London, 1954. Later sitters of note consisted of people associated with the film or record industries such as singers Edric Connor, Carmen Prietto, conductor Richard Austin, and actors Dirk Bogarde and Patrice Wymore. During the Blitz in 1940, her studio-flat in Hampstead was destroyed by a bomb, and much of her early work was lost.
After World War II, her name chiefly became associated with graphic design for the Radio Times, and designing for the film and television industries. In 1939 she married author and editor Edward Richard Carl Huson, by whom she had one son, author and television writer and producer Paul Huson. She was predeceased by her husband in 1984, and she herself died in Saffron Walden, Essex, in 2001.
Works
Illustration, design, and graphic work + Radio Times illustrations issue title The Suicide Club meets... Kitchen Front Don't pass it on, but... The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies, O! But lovelier than the cornfield... The Canterville Ghost Three Sisters The Star in the East–3 January 1942 What the other Listener thinks The Dancers The Dark Charmer And the more I bring off... Easy Murder Gestapo over Europe Pagliacci Grim Fairy Tale Faust Alexander Nevsky–9 May 1942 Japan wants the Earth (cover)–20 June 1942 Carmen (cover) Next of Kin The Words upon the Window Pane Ladies in Retirement Death in the hand Tales of Hoffmann The Magic Flute Maude The Beggar Student Ruslan and Ludmilla La traviata Programs up to Boxing Day and Turandot Cinderella The Force of Destiny–30 January 1943 Hassan Madame Butterfly La bohème Robinson Crusoe Liebestraum Fidelio–17 April 2007 Les Cloches Royal Gesture Dona Claries The Wild Duck A Princess of Tartary Master Peter's Puppet Show How to arrange a Concert–2 October 1943 Samson and Delilah Ring up the Curtain Romeo and Juliet The Flying Dutchman–1 January 1944 Cinderella Distant Point Carmen The Hostage–29 April 1944 A Play Toward and Aïda The Man Stayed Alone Alexander Nevsky The Story of the Ballet Romeo and Juliet Emilia The Second Mrs Tanqueray Turandot The Story of the Ballet #2 L’Arlesienne Treasure Island Boxing Day (4 corner vignettes) A Voyage to Lilliput The Story of the Ballet #3,illustration of Sunday Rhapsody Scheherazade The Tale of Tsar Saltan Tuesday Serenade A Princess of Tartary Corner in Crime The Wizard of the Mountain The Wild Duck–15 September 1945 Paul Temple Returns Golden Dragon City Schwanda the Bagpiper Prince Igor Tosca Treasure Island Music for Saturday Night Bounden Duty A Hundred Years Old Lord Mondrago It Might Have Been the Moon–28 September 1946 La bohème Pagliacci The Turn of the Screw Children in Uniform Androcles and the Lion. Biography Save him, Doctor... Mary Rose The Silver Cord The Laughing Woman The Man who was Thursday To What Red Hell The Poet and the Child If The Flying Dutchman Beyond the Night The Narrow Corner–24 January 1948 Xerxes The Black Cap has to wait Eugene Onegin The Family from One-End Street The Lost Horizon The Healing Stream The first post will be opened tonight Focus on Old Age Scamps in Paradise Focus on Child Adoption The Great Ruby Ming Bizet's Carmen The Rise and Decline of Johnny Godwin–20 August 1949 The Story of ‘Lulu.’ Point of Honour Summer Showtime Promenade Concert Boxing Day, two double-spreads Stars from the Shows Shanties and Forebitters Summer Showtime Songs from the Shows The Bottom of the Well. Dona Clarines Cried the Sparrow Songs from the Shows Summer Rain Pagliacci. La traviata The Flower in the Rock The Lady from Albuquerque The Laughing Woman.–31 July 1954 The Flying Dutchman The Turn of the Screw The Turn of the Screw The Dark Eyed Sailor. The Cat and the Canary A Vegetarian Dish for April The Turn of the Screw From Morn to Midnight Music at Ten New Year's Eve, triple spread. Journey to Venezuela Memories of a Street of Artists The Lost Horizon. A Hundred Years Old Murder at Elstree Australian Saga Ruslan and Ludmilla Stories and Music from the Ballet. A Time of the Serpent Samson and Delilah–27 December 1958 Chu-Chin-Chow The Wraiths. Lost Love Shadow of a Pale Horse Enter Three Witches–5 December 1959 Where William Weare was Murdered. A Play for the Guide Festival Scamps in Paradise New Year's Eve, triple page spread.
In 1936 Lehmann executed black and white designs for Pilkington Glass Ltd., and designed wallpapers for John Line, Ltd.Jackson, L.: Twentieth-Century Pattern Design, Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. In 1937 she illustrated the book Weekend Caravan, edited by S. Hillelson.Connelly, Bill, Olga Lehmann, Imaginative Book Illustration Society Newsletter, No 15, Summer 2000. In 1938 she illustrated the book Happy Heart, Some frontier folk I have met, fish, flesh and fowl, by Cora L. Shearburn. In 1940 Lehmann was permitted by the War Office to make sketches and drawings of London bomb damage, air raid shelters, and Air Raid Precautions personnel. In 1941, Lehmann began drawing monthly illustrations for the British Broadcasting Corporation's publication the Radio Times, commissions that would last over a period of almost two decades. Lehmann also started drawing illustrations for another BBC publication, The Listener, beginning with Louis Macneice's Cook's Tour of the London Subways. In 1941, Lehmann also illustrated the novel Look! The Wild Swans, by Juliette de Baïracli Levy (pictorial title page, frontis, six full-page and one half-page illustrations in black and white, pictorial card cover). She later illustrated a book of poetry by Levy, The Yew Wreath, (eight full-page black and white illustrations, pictorial card cover), and a second novel of Levy's, The Bride of Llew, (black and white illustrations, pictorial card cover). In 1942 Lehmann joined the London artists' agency R. P. Gossop, for illustration commissions. In 1946 Lehmann illustrated Fairy Tales from Turkey, collected by Naki Tezel, trans. Margery Kent, ed. Herbert Read (color frontis., seven full-page black and white illustrations). In 1947 Lehmann illustrated A Youthful Poet's Dream (black and white vertical half-page in The Children's Own Treasure Book, Odhams Press). In between 1948 and 1950 Lehmann also began drawing periodic illustrations for BBC Publications, the Arabic Listener. In 1948 she illustrated An Indian Boyhood by Noel Sircar, London: Hollis & Carter (21 chapter-head illustrations in black and white scraperboard, pictorial dust jacket); The Peddler (black and white pictorial border) in The Modern Gift Book for Children, Odhams Press; "How Dan met the Fairies of Elbolton" (full-page color, pictorial border to title and two text illustrations) in "The Children's Hour Annual", Odhams Press. In 1949 Lehmann illustrated the book jacket for Dead Lion by John and Emery Bonnett (Michael Joseph, London). In 1950 Lehmann executed illustrations for a year's advertising campaign for Murphy Radio Ltd. She also drew illustrations for The London Mystery Magazine, vol 1, number 2, The Trod, by Algernon Blackwood; and numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, The Slave Detective by Wallace Nichols. In 1952, she illustrated Singing Together – Rhythm and Melody, for BBC Publications. Lehmann also illustrated the cover for the Christmas issue of London Calling, the overseas journal of the BBC. She also drew the illustrations and designed the dust jacket for Evening Star, by M.E. Patchett, Lutterworth Press. Lehmann illustrated the 1953 London Calling, Christmas Issue cover. 1954–1957: Lehmann designed record sleeves for Argo Records (UK). 1954, Lehmann again illustrated the London Calling Christmas Issue cover. 1985: Lehmann illustrated and published The Wishing Chair and Other Verse, by her late husband, Carl Huson. 1986: Lehmann illustrated and published Spoken Words: World War II Poems, Tales & Memories, by Carl Huson. 1987: Lehmann illustrated and published Fine Feathers, a book of poems for children, by Carl Huson.
Murals
In 1934 Olga Lehmann was commissioned by a French company, Stic-B Paints, Ltd, to paint murals in the Palace Hotel, Buxton. In 1935 Lehmann painted murals in the St Helier House Hotel, Jersey. She was chosen to design a canvas mural for the Queen Victoria Street Railway Bridge, London, to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary. Between 1936 and 1938 Lehmann painted murals for architect Clive Entwistle, and received multiple commissions from Stic-B Paints for murals in hotels, private buildings, shops and nurseries. In 1938 she exhibited mural designs at the Building Centre, Bond Street. London, with Mary Adshead, Aelred Bartlett, John Hutton, Roland Pym and Laurence Scarfe, and painted murals in Fuller's Restaurant, Sloane Street in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II. In 1940 Lehmann painted murals for London Air Raid Precautions Headquarters, and received a permit from the War Office to execute sketches and drawings of London bomb damage, air raid shelters, and ARP personnel. In 1942 she painted murals at the Censorship Department, Holborn. 1943: Lehmann designed and painted murals for the workers' canteen in Bristol Aircraft Company's underground, wartime factory in Spring Quarry, Corsham. These are now part of MoD Corsham, and are grade II* listed.Quinn, Andrew H.: Corsham Murals. Cultural Heritage, Defense Estates Annual Report, 2001, Ministry of Defense. She also designed and painted murals in the Pavilion Hotel, Scarborough, and the Grand Hotel, Brighton, by which time she had entered the British film industry. In 1953 Lehmann painted a mural on canvas featuring Captain Bligh for Errol Flynn's Tichfield Hotel in Port Antonio, Jamaica.
Film, television, and theatrical design Leese, Elizabeth: Costume Design in the Movies, "Olga Lehmann". Frederick Ungar Publications. New York, 1976, 1983..