Small Red Structure

Details

Margaret Mellis (b. 1914)
Small Red Structure
signed and inscribed 'Margaret Mellis/Small RED STRUCTURE' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas laid on board
16½ x 12¾ in. (41.9 x 32.4 cm.)

Provenance

Purchased by the present owner at the 1968 exhibition.

Exhibited

Oxford, Bear Lane Gallery, Margaret Mellis, October 1968, no. 20.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis. Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

Margaret Mellis studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1929-33, and won a travelling scholarship to Paris. In 1938 she met the critic and painter Adrian Stokes, whom she married. In 1939 they moved to Cornwall, both becoming central figures in the St.Ives group of artists. She later married the artist Francis Davison (see lot 73) and they spent time in France in the later 1940s. In 1950 Mellis moved to Suffolk where she still lives and works. Lots 76-78 come from a group of paintings that Mellis painted in the 1960-1970s of abstract geometric shapes which were concerned with colour, texture and space.

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