Biography
Katharine Anne 'Nan' West, Mrs David Robertson (b. London, UK 1904 - d. 1956), after a miserable childhood, trained at the Slade School of Fine Art. She was a contemporary of Rex Whistler (1905-1944) there and later assisted him in his painting the Tate Gallery murals, for what became known as 'The Rex Whistler Restaurant', around 1926/7. She then painted the oil on canvas murals, 'Cycle of Seasons', including Summer, for the new outpatient department of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Bolsover Street, Fitzrovia, London -possibly financed by her former teacher, the Slade Professor of Fine Art, and himself a surgeon, Henry Tonks (1832-1967) and where her father, Henry West, was the chairman - in 1927. West also wrote and illustrated The Landscape Painter’s Calendar (1928) which was published by Methuen and Co. and she attended the British School in Rome in the same year. She also painted a Noah’s Ark scene at the Child Welfare Clinic, Chelsea, and murals for the Tea Rooms at Simpsons, Piccadilly, which no longer survive. Some years later, however, she had a mental breakdown and abandoned her artistic work, eventually committing suicide.
