Tea and Cakes by Dione Page

Dione Page was brought up in Tolleshunt Major near Maldon, where her father had a farm. She started drawing on newspapers at the age of four and after attending school in Danbury and Colchester, she went on to study at the Colchester School of Art (1953-6) under the Headship of John O’Connor RWS. She then worked for four years for the local prominent artist Charles Debenham as a graphic designer, both in publishing and advertising. She also worked in adult education. In 1966 she married Nelson Blowers, an artist’s framer, had three children and moved a few miles from Colchester.

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Dione Page’s first pictures were of the Welsh valleys where she spent many happy family holidays. These paintings of mountains and waterfalls had a bold quality, with water gushing out of bare rocks and Welsh chapels and cottages painted in a severe manner.

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Later she found local inspiration in the East Anglian landscape and created outdoor scenes filled with fishing boats stranded in the mud of Mersea or Harwich and country houses with picturesque gardens. She also created still life images of succulent fruits, blossoming flowers and ready-to-eat shellfish. Her chosen subjects are intensified by her favourite medium: a mix of gouache, wax pastel and lumigraph pencil. This unique combination was developed and perfected from her earlier days as a graphic designer. Her main artistic influences have been Mary Fedden and Edward Bawden. Gardening, sailing and travelling have greatly influenced her choice of subject matters.

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Dione Page was elected Associate Member of the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in 1990 and was a member of Colchester Art Society since 1954. She had been on its selection committee for many years. She had many solo and group exhibitions in galleries, in London, Wales and the rest of Britain and exhibited locally.  She received RWA awards in 1986, 1987 and 1988. She died in 2021.