Painter and stage designer, born in Kensington, west London, her father, Arnold Palmer, being related to the Huntley and Palmer biscuit firm. Through his friend Kenneth Clark, Palmer became editor of the four Pilgrim Trust Recording Britain books, 1946–9, to which notable artists contributed. He had edited and directed The New Weekly from 1913, and was a patrician, liberal Georgian living at The Grange, Yattendon, Berkshire, who for Recording Britain had an office in the National Gallery. Sue Palmer entered the Slade School of Fine Art in 1931, leaving in 1936, re-entering it from 1945–8 to study history of art. William Townsend makes several references to Palmer in his published Journals covering the early Slade years, referring to her attractiveness and “innocent and engaging vivacity” and to her being painted by Anthony Devas.
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She was a member of a group including his wife Nicolette as well as Vivien John and Rupert Shephard, with whom she is pictured at their shared exhibition at Cooling Galleries in 1935. Vivien John and Sue Palmer painted together in Italy in the 1930s. Palmer was close to Augustus John and his family, admiring the work of his sister Gwen. Palmer worked as a set designer, notably of ballet, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and was a member of the Society of Mural Painters, listed in its first exhibition catalogue, Arts Council, 1950. In that year she gave up art to become an organic farmer, at Firtree Farm, Hampstead Norreys, Berkshire, where one of her foibles was shooting game birds from her window. Others were adoration of the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and the British conservative politician Enoch Powell. Her experiences in the Women’s Land Army in World War II had persuaded Palmer that healthy eating would negate the need for a National Health Service, which she hated. She felt that the money spent on it would be better deployed on the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
