Sculptor, wood engraver, lino-cutter, illustrator and designer of great versatility. Born at Bromley, Kent, Gerts, as she was known to her friends, first wanted to be a farmer and worked for a year on the land in Essex. Then she had a year at Beckenham School of Art and a year in Germany to learn the language, followed by four years at Leon Underwood’s School of Painting and Sculpture at Hammersmith, 1922–6. In 1926 married the artist Blair Hughes-Stanton, divorced 1933. Was influenced by the work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Brancusi and tribal sculpture in the 1920s and ’30s. First commission for a portrait bust was of the writer A P Herbert, in 1931, and she became noted for her busts of writers, such as Kathleen Raine (Tate Gallery) and David Gascoyne, and heads of children.