MARY FEDDEN OBE RA PPRWA
Bristol 1915 - 2012 London
Ref: CC 194
Black and white tulips
Signed and dated lower left: Fedden 1987
Oil on board: 16 x 12 in / 40.6 x 30.5 cm
Frame size: 21 ¾ x 17 ½ in / 55.2 x 44.4 cm
Provenance:
Richard Hagen, Worcestershire
Richard Green, London;
private collection, UK, 2008
Exhibited:
London, Richard Green, Mary Fedden, 2008, no.11, illus. in colour and on the cover
Born in Bristol in 1915 Mary Fedden studied at the Slade School of Art in London from 1932 to 1936 and during the war she painted sets at for the Arts Theatre in Great Newport Street, London. At the end of the war Fedden began to paint in earnest developing her own personal style which owed much to the influence of the French and Russian modernists. In 1951 she married the noted British artist Julian Trevelyan and they devoted themselves to art and travel. Her paintings throughout the 1950s were greatly influenced by her husband and they collaborated on a number of occasions often being commissioned to paint murals together.
By the start of the 1960s Mary Fedden was beginning to formulate her own unique style using pure, vibrant colours. From 1958 to 1964 she was a tutor at the Royal College of Art where her pupils included David Hockney and Allen Jones, then, from 1965 until 1970, she taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School at Cobham in Surrey.
Mary Fedden is best known for her bold, vivid still lifes and her colourful views of Italy and North Africa, her work is touched by a unique naivete and she is probably one of Britain’s best loved artists. Now aged 90 she continues to work from the studio in Hammersmith that she shared with her husband who died in 1988.
