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MOLLOY, SYLVIA (b.1914)

Born Sylvia Leyden at South Shields, she studied at Durham University (M.A.), and after obtaining a teaching diploma, she taught English and art at St Asaph, Flintshire. In August 1940 she travelled to Burma to marry Patrick R.H. Molloy of the Burma Civil Service, which she did on 16th October 1940 at Maymyo in the Shan States. Molloy was stationed as a junior administrative officer in the Northern Shan States. She was evacuated by air from Burma after the Japanese invasion of 1942, but her husband had to walk to India and very nearly failed to survive. After a spell in Simla and Lahore, Molloy returned to Burma as a liason officer early in 1944. Sylvia Molloy gained a growing reputation as a portrait painter during this time. After leave in England, the Molloys returned to Burma in 1945, before settling in South Africa at the end of 1947 with their two young sons. She ran an art school in Johannesburg, before returning to the UK in the 1960s, where she has since practiced as a professional artist. She has exhibited in South Africa, Europe and Australia, and in the UK at the Royal Academy, London, and her home town of Letchworth.

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WD4446-4447

Two portrait studies of young women from the Northern Shan States. 1941.

Exhibited: Gallery 27, London, September 1998.

Given by the artist, 1998.

Note: Both drawings were done during Molloy’s tour of duty at Pang Yang in the then Mang Lön State, when he was engaged in buying up opium for the government. Most of the artist’s drawings and paintings of this period were lost in the retreat from Burma. For Sylvia Molloy’s memoir of her time in Burma, see MSS Eur F272.