Mary Fedden Enigmas and Variations
- Artist: Mary Fedden
- Published: 2007
- Publisher: Lund Humphries, Aldershot
- Edition: -
- Format: Hardback
- Height: 30cm
- Pages: 176
- Illustrations: 201 colour
£40.00
Add to basketMary Fedden Enigmas and Variations
Mary Fedden (born 1915) is one of Britain's most popular living artists. The focus of this new book is the artist's creative process in various different media – oil, gouache, pencil and collage.
While Fedden is often considered almost exclusively a still-life painter, still life is far from being her only preoccupation, as this book shows. Fantasy and imagination have always played a strong part, and this is particularly evident in her small gouaches. A quietly surreal, enigmatic streak runs through much of her work.
Fedden's collages are a witty and affectionate homage to the work of her husband, Julian Trevelyan. They lived, worked and travelled together from 1949 to 1988. The book re-emphasizes her debt to him, but also her independence, even during their early life together when he stimulated her move into modernism.
In an engaging text, which draws on numerous conversations with the artist, Christopher Andreae considers why Mary Fedden has such a popular following, looks at the English quality of her work, and talks about the commercialization of her art and her attitudes to the art market. Fedden is shown to be an original, serious and prolific artist, a draftsman of unusual sensitivity and prowess, and a colourist of power and subtlety.
Profusely illustrated with works from private and public collections, this is a book for Mary Fedden's existing devotees as well as newcomers to her work.
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Authors Biography
Christopher Andreae has written about art since the early 1960s. He is the author of Mary Newcomb (Lund Humphries 1996; revised reprint 2007), Mary Fedden (Lund Humphries 2007) and A Word or Two, a collection of essays published in 2004.
Artists Biography
Mary Fedden left school to study at the Slade School of Art at the age of sixteen. After leaving the college she made a living teaching, painting portraits and producing stage designs for Sadlers Wells and the Arts Theatre.
At the outbreak of the Second World War Fedden served in the Land Army and the Woman's Voluntary Service and was commissioned to produce murals for the war effort. In 1944 she was sent abroad as a driver for the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes.
In 1951 Mary Fedden married the artist Julian Trevelyan who she had met before the war. They took a studio on the Thames River at Chiswick, where Fedden, in her 90's, still lives and works today. Together, Trevelyan and Fedden travelled widely and even collaborated on a mural commission for Charing Cross Hospital. Fedden received several other commissions for murals, most importantly from the Festival of Britain (1951), the P & O Liner, Canberra (1961) as well as from schools and hospitals.
From 1958-1964 she taught at the Royal College of Art and was appointed the first female tutor in the Painting School. Her pupils included David Hockney and Allen Jones. Subsequently, Fedden taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School and was elected Royal Academician. From 1984 to 1988 she was President of the Royal West of England Academy. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath and an O.B.E. for her work.
