The Zinkeisen sisters

Born: Kilcreggan, Dunbartonshire, 31 July 1898

Died: Badingham, Suffolk, 3 January 1991

Anna Katrina Zinkeisen

Born: Kilcreggen, 29 August 1901

Died: London, 23 September 1976

DAUGHTERS of Welsh-born Clare Bolton-Charles and Victor Zinkeisen, a Glasgow timber merchant and amateur artist. Tutored at home, both sisters wanted to draw and paint to the exclusion of all other academic pursuits. In 1909, the family moved to Middlesex, where Doris and Anna Zinkeisen attended the Harrow School of Art. In 1917, they won scholarships to the Royal Academy Schools, where Doris received Paris Salon medals: Bronze (1929), Silver (1930) and Gold (1934); Anna, who also studied sculpture, won a Silver Medal at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Dcoratifs.

Painting in the academic-realist style, the Zinkeisens gained popularity as portraitists. While portraiture was the mainstay of both careers, the sisters also favoured equestrian subjects, and they worked widely in other visual media - for example, advertising posters for the London Underground Company and murals for the RMS Queen Mary. Doris also established a successful career as stage and costume designer for plays and films.

Anna had a prominent reputation as an illustrator of books and magazine covers. During the Second World War, both enrolled as auxiliary nurses. In 1941, they were employed as war artists for St John's Ambulance Brigade.

Anna's contribution includes Archibald McIndoe Operating at East Grinstead. As a "medical artist", she worked with McIndoe and Alexander Fleming, providing pathological drawings of traumatised tissue, later used in a textbook. In 1945, Doris was sent to Germany, where she depicted the Belsen concentration camp.

• From The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh University Press; www.eup.ed.ac.uk)