Isabel Brodie Babianska

She continued to paint in London, and also worked successfully as a photographic fashion model for agencies including Dior, and was featured on the cover of various fashion magazines, including Vogue. She ran Whittaker Model Agency, inherited from her friend Michael Whittaker, until she died in 2006.

Babianska also exhibited at the 1947 Edinburgh International Festival, Murrayfield, at the Society of Independent Scottish Artists.

Writing about the group's second show in 1944, art critic Robert Melville observed:

Her early work is signed in her maiden name, Isabel Brodie. In 1943 she married Count Tomasz Babianski, a Polish pilot officer. Thereafter she exhibited as Isabel Babianska. She had two daughters, named Monica and Irena. The first born 1945, and the second born in 1946, after they had moved to London.

In 1941 Brodie was commissioned by Glasgow Corporation to design and paint murals at the YMCA headquarters in Bath Street. She was helped by her close friend Marie de Banzie. Together they collaborated in the design of costume and stage sets for the Celtic Ballet, including Macbeth, Conte Russes, L'Obsession, Tam O'Shanter, Cloak of Feathers and a Ballet of the Book of the Dead amongst others. She also illustrated Scottish Art and Letters, and designed the cover for Poetry Scotland No.2.

As encouraged by her father, Brodie studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1936 to 1940. In 1939 she was awarded a travelling scholarship to London, however as war was declared shortly afterwards she remained in Glasgow, returning the scholarship money. The same year she exhibited a self-portrait, titled 'Reflection' at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, which, in 1940, was purchased by Glasgow City Council for Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. This painting depicts the artist at the side of her easel, paintbrushes in hand. On graduating from Glasgow, she studied at the Hospitalfield School of Art during 1941.

Isabel Brodie Babianska (5 February 1920 – 2006) was a Scottish painter and a founder member of the New Scottish Group. She worked on various commissions as a costume and stage designer, and as an illustrator and model.