| Activity | Freda Skinner was born on 31st January 1911 in Limpsfield, Surrey. Her artistic training began in 1928 where she enrolled at the Royal College of Art, London direct from school. Unable to rely on family to pay her tuition fees, Skinner was supported by several of her neighbours with artistic backgrounds who recognised her talent including Ethel and Sybil Pye (a sculptor and bookbinder respectively), the illustrator Arthur Rackham and the painter Louis Fry.
At the RCA, she studied under Henry Moore and the wood carver Alan Durst. In the early 1940s, Skinner began teaching toy making and sculpture at Kingston School of Art. During the war she oversaw 20 Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) girls and women volunteers creating landscape maps in relief made with hessian which illustrated where vehicles could be parked safe from observation.
After the war she became the Head of Sculpture at Wimbledon School of Art a position she held from 1945 to 1971. She became known for a teaching style that conveyed knowledge in a simple and clear manner and was respected by both colleagues and students. While at Wimbledon, she published a book on woodcarving in 1961. She also regularly completed commissioned work including a war memorial at St Marys’ Church, Battersea in 1948, the foundation stone for the Barbican Arts Centre in 1972 and a plaque commemorating the Cromwell Debates at St Mary’s Church, Putney in 1982. She was also a fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors and a member of the Society of Portrait Sculptors, where she served on the council.
After retiring from teaching in 1971, Skinner lived in Putney where she had her studio and later moved to West Amesbury, Wiltshire in 1987. She worked with a wide range of material including terracotta, wood, stone and bronze and experimented with painted crystal, stoneware, cement fondue and fibreglass.
Skinner died in 1993 just a few weeks after attending a private view of a retrospective exhibition of her work at the Bruton Street Gallery, London. Still working at the time of her death, she had recently completed a bronze sculpture of the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev and was working on a 5ft tall lime wood figure of Hamlet.
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