Mary Fedden (1915-2012)

Painter and printmaker, born in Bristol, her parents were not particularly interested in art but her uncle, Romilly Fedden, encouraged her to paint so she went on to study at the Slade School of Art, 1932-36. One of her Slade teachers was émigré stage designer Vladimir Polunin, who had worked as a designer with the Ballets Russes. This discipline was to stand her in good stead when during World War II when she worked for the Land Army, she constructed stage sets for the Arts Theatre in London. She further used her experience in 1951 when she painted a children’s mural at the Festival of Britain site on the South Bank. A decade later she was commissioned by P&O for a mural on their prestigious liner Canberra. Twenty years later, by then married to Julian Trevelyan, with him she was commissioned to execute another mural at Charing Cross Hospital. As a teacher she became the first woman to instruct in painting at the RCA, 1958-6