Sophie Walbeoffe

Sophie Walbeoffe graduated from Wimbledon School of Art where she was tutored by Maggie Hambling, Christopher Lebrun, Neil Bally and Martin Fuller. She studied under Cecil Collins where she learnt to paint with two hands. Sophie Walbeoffe is an established travel painter travelling and living in Dubai and Canada in the mid eighties. In 1987 Sophie joined Operation Raleigh expedition to Kenya as the official artist, met and married Dr Piers Simpkin and his herd of 60 camels lives there twenty five years later with two children Lara and Jasper. She has painted some curious people: Jimmy John, Wilfred Thesiger, the Emir of Sharja on his death bed and many other nomads. Sophie has painted in Syria, Jordan, India, Spain, France and spent 3 years living in a studio in the Old City, Jerusalem. With over thirty one woman exhibitions to date she is still living in Kenya, where she has a studio and is illustrating a book “Lamu - an artists impression” and helping her daughter start her new Polka Dot gallery in Nairobi, meanwhile her husband’s sixty camels and their traditional herder’s still model for her paintings.