Still Life Week 5: The Magic of Mary Fedden

Mary Fedden OBE, RWA, RA was born in Bristol 1915 and remained a popular and acclaimed painter till her death in London in 2012.  Fedden knew from an early age that she wanted to be a painter and trained at the Slade from 1932 to 1936, a pupil of the theatre designer Vladimir Polunin.

After her time at the Slade Fedden worked on portraits and stage designs for the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, followed by teaching in Bristol till World War 2 broke out when she served in the Land Army, the WVS and as a driver for NAAFI in Europe.

She admired the early works of Ben Nicholson and his wife Winifred and also the still life paintings of Anne Redpath and the French painter Henri Hayden.  She also received commissions for many mural works including one for the TV pavilion at the festival of Britain.

It was after the war that Fedden developed her own way with painting flowers and still life subjects and I believe was still greatly influenced by a sense of drama from her stage design days.  Fedden’s still life works seem to me very theatrical, like little sets for the objects that they contain.  These sometimes have landscape or window backdrops and the shapes are somewhat flattened as in Nicholson’s early works.  She certainly breathes magic and wonder into quirky and ordinary objects alike.  In one painting a teapot and an Auricularia has a background of an erupting volcano and a zebra in the middle ground!  Such juxtapositions abound in her work and one can only imagine the stories behind them.  Some examples can be seen on the Pinterest Board, link: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jhall1282/still-life/fedden-mary/

Fedden did work in oil but favoured working in gouache, especially on rough textured hand made Indian papers.  Her compositions were not set in stone from the beginning, rather she would make a few guidelines and improvise as she went along.  She had a wonderful vocabulary of brush strokes and painted exclusively in the studio from the many drawings made in her sketchbooks.  Do look at the short U-tube clip to watch her painting. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxOOKRhllPw

Many works also include some elements of collage.  As well as quirky objects subjects often included a light source, a candle or lamp to dramatic or rather romantic effect as in “lilies at Moonlight”..

Looking at the works of Mary Fedden gives an interesting link with Ben Nicholson whose early work was one of her influences and next week’s artist, David Hockney who was one of her pupils at RCA.

For more of Fedden’s work see the link to “115 works by Mary Fedden” below:

Your challenge this week is to find an unusual gathering of objects and make a magical still life study from them.  Think about the setting and especially the tonal balance in your painting as well as the colour.  Suggested media: gouache, watercolour or acrylic with perhaps a collaged element.

Your paintings: