Hey was born in
Faringdon in
Oxfordshire. She first studied art at the Brussels School of Art and then in London at the
Central School of Arts and Crafts and the
Slade School of Art. As well as working as a painter and draughtsman, Hey also modelled for the artist
Walter Sickert who painted her portrait several times in the early 1920s. Hey sat for Sickert on a daily basis throughout January and February 1923 and continued to see him regularly on a social basis afterwards. Hey began to exhibit at group shows with the
London Group from 1928, with the
Women's International Art Club, the
New English Art Club and the Society of Graphic Artists. Her first solo show was in 1933 at the
Lefevre Gallery in London and included drawings of writers and artists including Sickert,
Rebecca West and
Duncan Grant. In 1938 Hey exhibited a portrait of Sir
Adrian Boult at the London Group. In 1941 Hey moved to north Wales and settled in
Llysfaen and began to focus on her model making. She would work in terracotta, wire and paper mache to create miniature period figures often with historically accurate costumes. Examples of her work featured in the
Arts Council of Wales 1955 touring exhibition of contemporary Welsh painting and sculpture and she exhibited with the North Wales Group from 1956 to 1968. Between 1957 and 1961 Hey was a regular exhibitor at the art exhibition at the
National Eisteddfod of Wales and in 1964 had a solo exhibition,
Period Figures, at the
Geffrye Museum in London and which also toured. The Llanover Hall arts centre in Cardiff hosted an exhibition of her drawings in 2006 and both the
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, the Contemporary Arts Society for Wales and the
Museum of English Rural Life in
Reading hold pieces by her. ==References==