The Art Of Dwina Murphy-Gibb

If the name is not familiar to you, Dwina Murphy married Bee Gee Robin Gibb in 1985. Now sixty-six years old, she has been a widow since May 2012. Dwina was born three years to the day after her famous husband, on December 22, 1952. Their first meeting was purely business, but Robin had recently been divorced from his first wife Molly Hullis, and it soon became clear that the stunning, soft spoken Irish blonde would become his soulmate.

Dwina at home with Robin and son RJ.

Although she has not achieved the same colossal heights of fame, Dwina is an accomplished artist in her own right, winning her first art competition at the age of four, and holding her first exhibition at the age of fourteen. Her literary talents include poetry, novels and plays, but fine art is her major talent, much of her work having a mystical or fantasy element to it.

Born in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, she studied at Hornsey Art College in London, an institution that has a long list of famous alumni including Roger Glover of Deep Purple, Ray Davies of the Kinks, and Lynsey de Paul who before her rise to fame as a singer-songwriter was a successful commercial artist.

Dwina’s work includes the critically acclaimed play Last Confessions Of A Scallywag, and illustrating a new translation of the poems of Sappho of Lesbos, which was edited by her close friend and independent scholar Terence DuQuesne, who died in 2014. At DuQuesne’s London funeral service and cremation, at which she spoke, the Bee Gee’s song How Deep Is Your Love was played along with part of Titanic Requiem, the latter of which was composed by Robin with their son RJ.

In addition to her own work, Dwina is also a long time patron of the arts. Her other commitments are her family — she has been a grandmother since 2013 — and keeping alive the legacy of her late husband. This latter is easier done than said; a Bee Gee’s song is said to be played on the radio somewhere in the world every fifteen minutes.

You can check out Dwina’s artwork on her personal website, which is linked to the Bee Gee’s sites.

[The above article was first published on Medium, August 12, 2019].