‘It is a physical yen. No matter how busy I was giving birth to four children in six years — I didn’t neglect them — I found that if I held a paint brush it made me enormously happy,” says artist Moyra Bannister.

That passion shows through in the retrospective exhibition of her work at which opened today in the Dragon School art department Lady Bannister’s career began here in Oxford at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in 1945. This was followed by a period at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington.

When some of her paintings were selected for major London galleries, it looked as her career was about to take off.

But then she met the glamorous Roger Bannister. Anyone who was around in 1953 will remember the tremendous morale boost when he broke the four-minute mile. It was hardly surprising that Moyra was swept off her feet, just like the rest of the country. She said: “Roger became a doctor in the same year and we began married life in my studio.”

Her career changed course and family and work on government committees on children’s health and education took priority. But she never abandoned her brush and pen and kept a visual diary recording events in her family, social and work life. Among the well-known figures she has sketched are President Bill Clinton and Oxford University Chancellor Lord (Roy) Jenkins.

This exhibition illustrates the breadth of her talent in painting, drawing and the decorative arts, including furniture and painted china but also the warmth and intimacy of her work.

Moyra said: “The best thing I did on long Sunday afternoons was to teach the children to paint and draw.” As a result of this her artist daughter Erin Townsend (pictured) was inspired.

It is not surprising that a passion such as Moyra Bannister’s communicated; this thoroughly enjoyable exhibition has love in every brush stroke.

The show is on till March 31 during school hours. Report to The Lodge, The Dragon School, Bardwell