Buon Giorno, 1983 by Mary Fedden
Buon Giorno, 1983 by Mary Fedden
This small watercolour by Mary Fedden is actually a remake of an earlier work painted by the artist in 1980. In both she depicts her partner, Julian Trevelyan, standing in a street of white stone buildings reaching out toward a disembodied hand. In this iteration however she has chosen to paint two cats rather than the dog in the 1980 version. This is an example of Fedden’s characteristic collaging together of imagery to form her compositions – she would make many sketches and pull from them to do this.
MEDIUM: Watercolour and pastel on paper
DIMENSIONS: (unframed) 8.5 x 6 ins/ 21.6 x 15.2 cm
SIGNATURE: Signed ‘Fedden’ and dated (lower left)
Price: £19,000
Description
Mary Fedden is renowned for her unique perspective and great talent for finding beauty in the everyday. Her first solo exhibition followed the next year at the Mansard Gallery in Heal’s Department Store, where several of her still life flower paintings were displayed. Fedden developed her own style of flower paintings and still lifes, reminiscent of artists such as Matisse and Braque.
She worked with bold palettes and simplified shapes, carefully orchestrating her still life compositions to draw out the extraordinary from ordinary objects. In fact, it was her constant progression and development throughout her career that makes her overall body of work so interesting; from her earlier pieces playing with colour, perspective, and patterns to her later work experimenting with light, texture, and crisper, cleaner lines.
This small watercolour is actually a remake of an earlier work painted by Fedden in 1980. In both she depicts her partner, Julian Trevelyan, standing in a street of white stone buildings reaching out toward a disembodied hand. In this iteration however she has chosen to paint two cats rather than the dog in the 1980 version. This is an example of Fedden’s characteristic collaging together of imagery to form her compositions – she would make many sketches and pull from them to do this.
Provenance
Private Collection, United Kingdom
Biography
Born in Bristol, Fedden attended the city’s Badminton School, until she left at age sixteen, to study at the Slade School of Art, from 1932 to 1936. After leaving the college she lived between London and Bristol, and made a living teaching, painting portraits and producing stage designs for Sadler’s 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. After the war, she returned to easel painting and developed her individual style of still life painting, partially inspired by Modern painters such as Matisse and Braque.
In 1951 Mary Fedden married the artist Julian Trevelyan, whom she had met before the war. They took a studio on the Thames River at Chiswick, where Fedden lived and worked until she passed away. 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.
In 1955, in an article in ‘The Artist’ magazine, Fedden wrote: “I really float from influence to influence. I found the early Ben Nicholson’s fascinating as were the paintings of his wife Winifred. I also admire the Scottish artist Anne Redpath and the French painter Henri Hayden.”
From 1958-1964 Fedden taught at the Royal College of Art and was the first female tutor in the Painting School. Her pupils included David Hockney and Allen Jones. Subsequently, Fedden taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey, 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, as well as the University of Durham, and an O.B.E. for her work.