Dempster, Elizabeth Strachan, ARSA
1909 – 1987
Dempster was born in Greenock. Orphaned, she came to Edinburgh in 1930 where she would be near her guardian, the very Rev. Dr. Charles Warr, HRSA, Chaplain to the RSA (1927-69). She attended classes in the Edinburgh College of Art, under Alexander Carrick as Head of School and Norman Forrest. Her students included Hew Lorimer, Scott Sutherland and Tom Whalen - to name only those who were to become elected members of the RSA. Her experiences were enlarged in the Department of Sculpture in the London Regent Street polytechnic and in pre-War Munich. Throughout her life Elizabeth remained a carver, her medium being either wood or stone. Before the Second World War, she already had to her credit work commissioned for the 1938 Empire Exhibition in Glasgow. For the High Kirk of St Giles, she carved three large oak figures, Jubal and two 5'6" high Angels. Dempster's career was interrupted by the 1939 War: she enrolled and remained throughout with the nursing service. Returning to Edinburgh after the War, she converted a vacant garage into a well-lit studio whence flowed a steady stream of highly individual works. In St Giles War Memorial Chapel, in 1951, her fours square stone carvings filled the quarters of an austere Cross, being the unusual, albeit appropriate symbols for the four Elements, Fire, Earth, Air and Water. She worked with Charles d'.Orville Pilkington Jackson on the Royal Scots Memorial in Princes Street gardens, and for Hew Lorimer; she was responsible on the exterior of the National Library of Scotland for seven most original relief carvings which surmounts his lofty allegorical figures. For the State Visit of 1953, when the Queen attended the National Service in the High Kirk of St Giles it was Dempster who carved the two blazoned Archangels, St Michael and St Gabriel, standing over the Holy Table on which rested the Honours of Scotland. Dempster was elected ARSA in 1960.
