This is a painted sketch of a scene for a three-dimensional model or diorama (now lost), one of a series of dioramas representing the work of St John Ambulance Brigade and the British Red Cross Society, produced to raise funds for both organisations. Other scenes in the diorama included a night air raid, a hospital ward with St John Ambulance and British Red Cross nurses, a Forces convalescent home and a casualty reception, as well as a historical scene of knights of the Order of St John in the medieval hospital, and one of volunteers preparing parcels for British prisoners of war.
Doris Zinkeisen (1897-1991) was born in Scotland. She and her sister Anna Zinkeisen (1901-1976) rapidly made their names as society portrait painters and commercial artists, but Doris had an equally successful career as a designer of sets and costumes for the theatre and the British film industry, producing costumes for Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, as well as many others.
During the Second World War, she became an official war artist for the Joint War Organisation of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John and travelled to Europe where she painted harrowing sketches of the conditions at the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, following its liberation by the Allies.
She also took an active part in other Order of St John initiatives, using her skill with theatre set models to design and construct three-dimensional dioramas which were used in fundraising tours of the UK. The dioramas toured for three years from 1942 and raised in excess of £6,000 in donations from the public for the Joint War Organisation, and were then toured again in 1948 to raise funds and awareness.
Doris Zinkeisen married Captain Edward Grahame-Johnstone in 1927 and had three children: a son, Murray Grahame-Johnstone, and twin daughters, Janet and Anne Grahame-Johnstone (born 1928), who became successful illustrators, most famously illustrating Dodie Smith’s children’s classic, One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
Further reading:
Kelleway, P., Highly Desirable: The Zinkeisen Sisters and Their Legacy (Leiston Press, 2008)
