English Artist. A noted landscape painter, she spent her last 20 years using driftwood to create a dazzling variety of colors. The child of missionary parents, she was raised in East Lothian after her father was called home to England for service in WWI. Initially drawn to music, her talent for painting soon became obvious. She studied at the Edinburgh College of Art from 1929 to 1933, under William Gillies and S.J. Peploe. Winning a scholarship, she trained in Paris, later in Italy and Spain. In Paris, she met poet, painter, and critic Adrian Stokes, whom she was to marry in 1938, settling at St. Ives, Cornwall. Continuing to paint, she began experimenting in collage, and first exhibited in her new medium in the 1942 "New Movements in Art" at the London Museum...after the break-up of her marriage in 1945, Miss Mellis returned to London, and resumed painting landscapes. She and her second husband, painter Francis Davison, moved to the Suffolk coast in 1950; thru the next few years, her work was to become more abstract. She had her first solo exhibit at the AIA Gallery in London in 1958, and continued experimenting with differing forms and colors thru the 1970s. Following Davison's death in 1983, she continued to paint and draw (her pencil and crayon flowers were particularly noted), and began the driftwood constructions that may represent her most significant body of work. Miss Mellis exhibited frequently at Austin Desmond Fine Art in London, and had major showings at the Newlyn Art Gallery in Cornwall, and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art in Norwich. A monograph of her work is scheduled for publication next year.
English Artist. A noted landscape painter, she spent her last 20 years using driftwood to create a dazzling variety of colors. The child of missionary parents, she was raised in East Lothian after her father was called home to England for service in WWI. Initially drawn to music, her talent for painting soon became obvious. She studied at the Edinburgh College of Art from 1929 to 1933, under William Gillies and S.J. Peploe. Winning a scholarship, she trained in Paris, later in Italy and Spain. In Paris, she met poet, painter, and critic Adrian Stokes, whom she was to marry in 1938, settling at St. Ives, Cornwall. Continuing to paint, she began experimenting in collage, and first exhibited in her new medium in the 1942 "New Movements in Art" at the London Museum...after the break-up of her marriage in 1945, Miss Mellis returned to London, and resumed painting landscapes. She and her second husband, painter Francis Davison, moved to the Suffolk coast in 1950; thru the next few years, her work was to become more abstract. She had her first solo exhibit at the AIA Gallery in London in 1958, and continued experimenting with differing forms and colors thru the 1970s. Following Davison's death in 1983, she continued to paint and draw (her pencil and crayon flowers were particularly noted), and began the driftwood constructions that may represent her most significant body of work. Miss Mellis exhibited frequently at Austin Desmond Fine Art in London, and had major showings at the Newlyn Art Gallery in Cornwall, and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art in Norwich. A monograph of her work is scheduled for publication next year.
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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