Born at Shipbourne in Kent, Edna Clarke Hall (née Waugh) was only 16 years old when she entered the Slade School in 1895. She attended the weekly meetings at Sickert’s studio in Bloomsbury with her fellow students Augustus John and Ambrose McEvoy (whose portrait she etched) and went on to become one of Henry Tonks’ star pupils, winning a scholarship in 1897. After four years of study, she married the barrister William Clark Hall in 1899 (knighted in 1932). An accomplished watercolourist and original printmaker, Edna Clarke Hall exhibited at the New English Art Club from 1901 and had her first solo show at the Chenil Gallery in 1914. It was after her successful large exhibition at the Redfern Gallery, that Redfern became her publishers. In 1939 Manchester City Art Gallery held a retrospective exhibition of Lady Edna Clarke Hall's work and in 1979 her final exhibition was held at the New Grafton Gallery in celebration of her hundredth birthday. [
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