Born in London in 1913, Christopher Ironside trained at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. He was a painter, sculptor, draughtsman, designer and teacher. During World War II, he served in the Direcorate of Camouflage and worked for the Air Ministry. After the war he worked for the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, then as education officer for the Council of Industrial Design (1946-1948). He taught at the Maidstone School of Art and the RCA. He collaborated with his brother Robin on theatrical design and postage stamps, including Sylvia for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet (1952) and one of the 1964 Shakespeare commemoration issues. He also did much of the designing for Pall Mall for the Coronation in 1953. Other designs included the obverse side of Britain’s decimal coinage and the new coinage for Tanzania, Brunei, Quarter, Dubai and Singapore, and the memorial for the Earl and Countess Mountbatten in Westminster Abbey. He died in 1992.

Born in London in 1912, Robin Ironside was a self-taught painter of Surrealist fantasies, a designer for the theatre and writer on art. After study at the Courtauld Institute of Art and also abroad, he became Assistant Keeper at the Tate Gallery (1937-1946) and Assistant Secretary for the Contemporary Art Society (1938-1945). He exhibited in London at the Redfern Gallery with his brother Christopher in 1944, and had an initial solo exhibition in New York at Durlacher Brothers in 1952. His work can be seen at the Tate Gallery and Leicester City Art Gallery. He collaborated with his brother in painting and applied art, and in theatrical décor for productions including Sylvia for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet (1952) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Edinburgh Festival (1957). His many writings included Painting Since 1939. He died in 1965.