Violet Banks Edinburgh Castle from the Sir Walter Scott Monument About 1930s © The Estate of the Artist

Biography

Born 1896
Died 1985
Nationality Scottish
Birth place Kinghorn

Violet Banks was a photographer born near Kinghorn, Fife. She studied at Edinburgh College of Art and later became senior arts mistress at St.Oran’s, a private school in Edinburgh. Banks produced photographs from as early as the 1920s, and set up her own commercial studio in Edinburgh in 1935. That same year she became a member of the Edinburgh Photographic Society. Banks photographed city and domestic scenes, but she is perhaps best known for her work in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Her photographs capture the rugged and nearly otherworldly landscapes of the Western Isles including the island Eigg. It is likely that she interacted with other female photographers on Eigg at the time including Mary Ethel Muir Donaldson. Working commercially, several of Banks’ images were used on products such as postcards.