Valerie Desmore

[2] Facing limited opportunities for further education, she left South Africa for London in 1946, to study at the Slade School of Fine Art.

[3] While she was a teenager, in 1943, Desmore had a public exhibition of her art at the Herbert Stanley Argus Gallery,[3] which was very likely the first such show by a woman artist classified as "coloured" in Cape Town.

She opened a shop in Covent Garden in 1978, and designed clothing for Marks and Spencer for eighteen years, while still painting in her spare time.

[5] She returned to South Africa to visit in 1997, when her work was featured in an exhibit called Land and Lives curated by Elza Miles.

[7] In 2012, curator Nontobeko Ntombela produced an exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, called A Fragile Archive, featuring the works of Gladys Mgudlandlu and Desmore.