User:SarahPallant/sandbox

Art
From an early age Sylvia had an ambition to become a "painter and draughtsman in the service of the great movements for social betterment". She trained at Manchester School of Art (1900-02) and then the Royal College of Art in London (1904-6). As part of her work campaigning for the WSPU, for which she created designs for a range of banners, jewellery and graphic logos. Her motif of the 'angel of freedom', a trumpeting emblem had wider appeal across the campaign for women's suffrage, appearing on banners, political pamphlets, cups and saucers.

In 1902 she was awarded the Proctor Travelling Studentship, a grant which enabled her to live abroad in order to study. She initially planned to divide her time between studying mosaics in Venice and frescos in Florence. However, she ultimately spent all her time in Venice, painting street scenes and copying examples of decorative art in Venice's many churches and civic buildings. In the winter of 1902 she enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti and was the only woman in her group to join a life drawing class studying a nude model.

While in Venice she made studies of the historic works of art including the Byzantine mosaics and icons of St Marks and the large scale paintings by Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio at the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni.

Sylvia found it difficult to reconcile her artistic vocation with her political activities, eventually deciding that they were incompatible. She said: "Mothers came to me with their wasted little ones. I saw starvation look at me from patient eyes. I knew that I should never return to my art". By 1912, she had all but abandoned her artistic career in order to concentrate on her political activism.