Born in the Wandsworth district, London on 7 July 1948, daughter of painter Allan Gwynn-Jones and his wife Rosemary Elizabeth née Allan (1911–2008), who married at St Pancras, London in 1937.
Emily studied at the Royal Academy School with travel in Europe, and then at the Royal College of Art 1966–70, under Carel Weight (1908–97), working in Paris during 1968. She won a British Council Travelling Scholarship to Budapest in 1971 and worked on costumes for English National Opera 1973–75 before studying at North-East London Polytechnic and etching with Norman Ackroyd (born 1938) followed by textiles at Central School of Arts and Crafts 1977–78.
She married painter Francis C. Beanland at Cirencester, Gloucestershire in 1980 and they live just outside Metfield in Suffolk, but she continued to work under her maiden name.
Emily has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, New English Art Club and New Grafton Gallery, and was a member of the Contemporary Portrait Society. She has had solo shows at Michael Parkin Gallery 1977, King Street Gallery 1983 and Heveningham Hall, Suffolk 1993 and many mixed shows. In 1972 she illustrated ‘Pavane for a Dead Infanta’ by Hugh Ross Williamson.
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