Mary Fedden

by Mel Gooding

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 covers the period from the mid-1930s when Fedden was at the Slade, 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, the first on this popular artist, is fully illustrated with sixty of Fedden's paintings in full colour, a number of her remarkable drawings in black and white, and photographs of the artist and her studio.