The Bedroom

Born in Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the Pacific, Rosemary Grimble was the daughter of Sir Arthur Grimble, a well known colonial administrator. She lived in Cyprus with her husband Adrian Seligman and worked for the Cyprus Review. She hardly ever uses colour in her drawings preferring linear black and white sketches, sometimes using only ink. This is a pen and ink drawing executed in 1953. Although the phiniotiko design, the small wicker chair and the type of bed lacking a headrest, are typical of rural Cyprus, there is little doubt that this is the artist’s bedroom. Features such as the untidy pillows, the books resting on the window sill and on the bedside table, a loose pair of sleepers and a tray with a dish and glass resting on the bed point to a deliberate untidiness. Together with the painting on the wall, it marks the lifestyle of a sophisticated upper-middle class English woman. A Cypriot bedroom would not have paintings on the wall but rather the couple’s photograph and wedding crowns or a religious icon or cross. All would have been displayed in the orderly manner akin to the taste of a rural housewife.