Mary Fedden – Yellow apple

Born in Bristol in 1915, Mary Fedden studied at the Slade School of Art in London from 1932 to 1936 and during the war painted sets 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 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, 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 was best known for her bold, vivid still lifes and her colourful views of Italy and North Africa.  Her work was touched by a unique naïveté and she will remain one of Britain’s best loved artists.  She continued to work from the studio in Hammersmith that she shared with her husband (who died in 1988) well into her nineties.