Patience Arnold was born in Royston near Barnsley but spent her childhood in Lytham St Annes. She trained at the Harris School of Art, Preston and became a member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. Patience had been a President of the Lytham St Annes Art Society. An article in the Lytham St Annes Express, August 1943, tells of an Exhibition of Art in aid of the Red Cross, held by Miss Phyllis Hibbert and Patience Arnold. ….”artwork was of a high order and topicality - a pre-war holiday crowd and wartime queue of women shoppers both showed excellent facial expression”. In 1967 Patience moved and set up a studio in the Lake District, where she was elected a member of the Lake Artist Society. The magic of childhood never left Patience Arnold. It is reflected in the themes of many of her paintings, nursery rhymes and children's tales, which brought her national recognition illustrating books and greeting cards. She was a collector of dolls, dolls houses and toys, and in 1980 she opened up her hillside cottage, near the junction of Kirkstone Road and North Road, Ambleside, to the public. Her friends, Miss Kirk and Miss Moffat, helped run the museum whilst Patience got on with her watercolours. Her collection included fourteen dolls houses, dating back to Victorian times, toy forts, model farms and lots of dolls. There is one of the artists sketch books, dating from the mid 40s, held at Lancashire County Council Archives. It features various drawings of costumes and performers from shows at Blackpool theatres, including The Grand Theatre. Little is known about why these sketches were produced and what they were for. It could be perhaps she was sketching pictures of the performers to sell back to them. Perhaps it was for a project she was working on or perhaps it was to practise. We don’t know for what purpose she had made these drawings. ?Patience died in Ambleside in 1991, aged 90.
