Margaret Mellis: A Life in Colour
Until 31 August
Constructed: 40 Years of the UEA Collection
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, until 14 December
The painter and construction-maker Margaret Mellis has led a remarkable and productive life, though sadly she is now living out the remainder of her existence in the twilight of Alzheimer’s, confined to bed and unable to work. Born in 1914 in China of Scottish parents, she came to Scotland as a baby, growing up to study music which she forsook for painting at Edinburgh College of Art in 1929. A talented student, she won a travelling award, studied with André Lhote in Paris, got to know Spain and Italy a little, before studying briefly at the Euston Road School in 1938 and marrying the writer and painter Adrian Stokes. They went to live near St Ives in Cornwall in 1939, and soon friends and refugees from the war turned up to stay: Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth (with their children) and then Naum Gabo and his wife.
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