Mary Potter
Still Life with Lamp, 1979
Oil on canvas
61 x 71 cm
24 x 28 in.

Mary Potter

Born in Kent, Mary Potter (1900-1981) was a British artist most well-known for her landscapes and still life paintings. Whilst studying at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1918-21, the artist focussed on figurative depictions and was celebrated for her portraiture. After moving to Aldeburgh in 1951, her work became increasingly abstract as she began to draw more from feeling and intuition, than literal representation. It is often observed that the Suffolk coast and its light fed into her later work, as well as her close friendship with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears.

Although her later work contrasts stylistically with her earlier work in realism, Potter’s colour palette remained consistent throughout her career; pale hues of pink, green, and yellow dance across the canvas, unified by the addition of white to each tone which lends her paintings a subtle, chalky quality.

Potter became an early member of the Seven and Five Society in 1921, where she was provided with her first source of critical praise. Later, she moved to join the London Group amongst the likes of Frances Hodgkins, Oscar Kokoschka, and Ceri Richards; soon after, she had her first solo exhibition in 1931 which took place at the Bloomsbury Gallery. In 1964 Bryan Robertson, then Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, offered her a solo exhibition in the gallery which was a major success for the artist. Potter then had her first exhibition with the New Art Centre in 1967, having been introduced to the gallery by Kenneth Clark. Twelve further solo exhibitions followed during the artist’s lifetime, widening her audience to such an extent that her final exhibition, in 1981, organised by the Arts Council at the Serpentine Gallery, was a signal success, with an audience that came close to 25,000 people.