Mary Fedden

Mary Fedden's work has an instantly recognizable personal style which has earned the artist a special place in British contemporary art. Her apparently effortlesss simplicity of presentation has behind it a long and rigorous search for the directness and poise of her later work, and an ardent intelligence of response to the work of those modern painters who have helped inspire and shape her own vision. - - The first part of this book traces Fedden's development from neo-Romantic beginnings in the 1940s, through to her discovery of the principal elements of her own mature style in the early 1970s. The second part concentrates on her later work, and describes her approach to still life painting, with its emphasis upon the presentation of a particular repertoire of subjects, its distinctive 'staging' of objects, its brilliantly effective uses of decorative colour and simplified forms. A biographical section relates the details of Mary Fedden's life, from her time at the Slade in the mid-1930s, through her war service, to the years of her marriage to fellow artist Julian Trevelyan and their enchanted life together at Durham Wharf on the Thames at Chiswick. - - This book, which is the first to be published on this popular artist, is fully illustrated with sixty of Fedden's paintings in full colour, a number of her remarkable drawings reproduced in black-and-white, and photographs of the artist and her studio. - - The Limited Edition of 100 copies includes 2 specially commissioned prints ? Stone, Jug and Sun and Still Life by the Sea ? printed at the etching table at Durham Wharf, and signed and numbered by the artist.