Thursday, July 2, 2020

Mary Fedden (1915-2012) - Liberated Forms

Mary Fedden
The Staffordshire Horse
1948
oil on panel
Tate Gallery

Mary Fedden
Flowers 1
ca. 1948
oil on canvas
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol

Mary Fedden
The Prophecies of Isaiah
1952
oil on canvas
Burton Gallery, University of Leeds, Yorkshire

Mary Fedden
Orange and Green Still Life
1957
oil on canvas
Ingram Collection, London

Mary Fedden
Still Life with a Black Pot
1958
oil on canvas
Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle, Cumbria

Mary Fedden
Blue-Striped Tablecloth
1959
oil on canvas
York City Art Gallery

"After studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1932 to 1936, Mary Fedden returned to her native city of Bristol to work and teach. She stopped painting altogether during the war, when she engaged upon a number of different national duties. Settling in London after the war, she returned to painting with a determination to break away from its formal conventions and give it more of the bright colour, broad strokes and simplified form that she had long admired in stage and costume design. The still life set before a landscape, explored in manifold inventive varieties of combination and composition, continues to be her best-known motif. She enjoyed an immensely successful career both as painter and teacher for over fifty years." 

– from biographical notes at Burton Gallery, University of Leeds

Mary Fedden
Still Life with Two Oranges
1965
oil on canvas
Otter Gallery, University of Chichester, Sussex

Mary Fedden
Red Still Life
1967
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Mary Fedden
Mauve Still Life
1968
oil on panel
Tate Gallery

Mary Fedden
The Etching Table
1971
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Mary Fedden
Red Still Life
1977
oil on panel
Museums Sheffield, Yorkshire
 
Mary Fedden
The Lamp
1988
oil on canvas
Guildford House Gallery, Surrey

Mary Fedden
Jug and Fruit
1989
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

Mary Fedden
Reflection
1992
oil on panel
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Mary Fedden
Still Life with Blue Poppies
1994
oil on canvas
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London