Margaret Mellis ~ A Life in Colour ~ at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

Written by Julia Dixon Thursday, 17 June 2010 21:15

Norwich, UK - A Life in Colour, a new exhibition which celebrates the career of the artist Margaret Mellis, opens at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, on Tuesday 1 July and runs until Sunday 31 August. A Life in Colour is the first major exhibition of work since Mellis stopped making in 2001, aged 87, due to ill health and features over 60 paintings and sculptures. The exhibition reveals Margaret Mellis’ life-long preoccupations: passion for colour and fascination with form.

The exhibition spans Margaret Mellis’ career, from the early still-lifes to the abstract reliefs of the 1960s and the magnificent constructions made from driftwood found on the beach near her Suffolk home. Margaret Mellis was one of the St Ives group of artists in Cornwall during the 1940s. The construction Scarlet Undercurrent, Mellis’ final work, is included in the show.

“For me, painting is way of making discoveries and of making a thing. When the areas of a painting start reacting together and yet hold together, the thing starts to live. Sometimes it gives a sort of kick” - Margaret Mellis.

 Margaret Mellis was born in China in 1914, of Scottish parents, before moving to Britain as a baby. Fascinated by colour as a child, her remarkable career began at just 15 years of age when she started studying at Edinburgh College of Art (1929-33). Her outstanding talent lead to her being awarded a postgraduate studio award and a coveted travelling scholarship that allowed her to travel to Paris and across Europe. From 1935-7 she held a fellowship at Edinburgh College of Art before studying at Euston Road School.

In 1939 Margaret Mellis moved to St Ives, Cornwall, with her first husband, writer and painter Adrian Stokes. As war broke out they were joined by Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo. In St Ives Ben Nicholson encouraged Margaret Mellis to experiment with collage and relief, prompting her to “think in a different way, not in colour, which was natural to me”. Despite the demands of bringing up a young child and contributing to the war effort by working on their market garden, Mellis still found time to pursue her art.

In 1947 Margaret Mellis married the artist Francis Davison and settled in Suffolk in 1950. Their first home in East Anglia was an isolated cottage near Diss where Margaret and her husband grew barley and kept chickens to subsist - both wishing to maximise their time working on their art. In 1976 they were forced to leave their idyllic cottage and moved to Southwold. It was after Francis’ death in 1984 that Margaret Mellis embarked on possibly her most creative phase, her ‘constructions’, made out of driftwood found on Southwold beach.

Emily Whalley, a fellow Southwold artist and close friend explains: “Although she had a voluminous pile of driftwood in her studio…stacked outside her front door and back door and soaking in the bath; when a friend brought an exciting new piece of wood to her, she was instantly galvanised to incorporate that particular piece into something lasting…”

The show also features the premier of a 60-minute film on the life of Margaret Mellis. Directed and produced by Sue Giovanni and Jules Hussey, the film which features rarely seen footage, tells the story of Mellis’ life in her own words using audio from interviews with Professor Mel Gooding (1993 and 1994) and excerpts of Margaret Mellis’ writing read by Susannah York.

 “Although not intended, this showing of Margaret is approaching a mini retrospective of her work for the first time in East Anglia. The last equivalent show of this nature was at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh in 1997. A series of coincidences has produced a film by Sue Giovanni, ‘Margaret Mellis - A Life in Colour’, that will be seen during the exhibition, puts into place Margaret’s life as a painter and refers to the present show very well” - Telfer Stokes, Margaret Mellis’ son.

“Margaret Mellis’ work ‘Transparent Collage’ from the 1940s forms part of the UEA Collection and is a fine example of her early work. ‘A Life in Colour’ provides a wonderful opportunity for us to trace and explore Mellis’ career from the 1940s onwards, increasing our understanding of the many interests and techniques that connect her early paintings and collage to the painted reliefs and late driftwood constructions” -  Sarah Bacon, Exhibition Curator, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

Visit : The exhibition is open Tuesday to Sunday (closed Monday), 10am to 5pm and is also open until 8pm on Wednesdays. Tel 01603 593199  / www.scva.ac.uk  The Sainsbury Centre is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and The Gatsby Charitable Foundation.

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