Ruth Hurle 1917-2004. 20th.Century British School. Oil on artists board. The filming of Valerie Hobson in her role as Blanche Fury, Circa.1948. 61 by 49.5 cms.
Hurle entered the Royal Academy Schools on 13 December 1932 and left in December 1937. During her time there she was awarded two prizes - runner-up in 1934 for the Hacker Prize for "Lady in an evening dress", and 3rd prize in the Armitage Prize of 1937. She exhibited five paintings at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition between 1940 and 1948 and also showed at the New English Art Club.
Valerie Hobson 1917-1998 Was a highly successful British actress whose film career spanned the 1930s to 1950s. She had starring roles in such films as Great Expectations, Kind Hearts & Coronets and the production featured here Blanche Fury. A 1948 production, Blanche Fury is a classic 1940s technicolor melodrama directed by Marc Allégret, starring Hobson, Stewart Granger and Michael Gough. Set in Victorian England two schemers stop at nothing to acquire the Fury estate, even murder. The plot is based on the Stanfield Hall slayings, an actual contemporary homicide case.
An interesting and unusual piece of British cinema history.