Denise Hoyle - an artist at her kitchen table

This fully illustrated book tells the story of artist Denise Hoyle's life and the work she made at her kitchen table.

Denise Hoyle grew up in Paris and at the age of fourteen she began work as an errand girl for a milliner couturier in Paris.  In 1954 aged just nineteen, keen to travel and learn English, Denise took a job as an au pair in London. It was through her new employers that in the summer of 1954, a few weeks after arriving in London, Denise travelled up to the village of Great Bardfield in Essex to see the first exhibition of work by the Great Bardfield Artists.  Throughout the village artists such as Edward Bawden and Michael Rothenstein were exhibiting art in their own homes.  Here Denise met the artist Walter Hoyle and the following year they were married.

Denise and Walter made their home in Essex and it was from here, working at the kitchen table, that Denise began to make imaginative and beautiful collages. Denise continued to make collages over several years, later making more detailed illustrated books for their two children.