A Life in Colour and Form
Born in Wukingfu, China, Margaret Mellis was a Scottish artist who became a central figure in the modernist movement that gathered in St Ives, Cornwall, during the 1940s. After studying at the Edinburgh College of Art and later in Paris under André Lhote, she moved to Carbis Bay in 1939. This period was marked by her engagement with abstraction and collage, notably through works like Collage with Red Triangle II. Her practice evolved significantly over the decades; while she moved through representational painting and simplified still lifes, her work eventually transitioned into total abstraction focused on geometric shape and colour. In her later years, she turned to creating constructions from found pieces of driftwood, exploring the relationship between form and colour.
Legacy and Recognition
Throughout her career, Mellis was renowned as a colourist. Her artistic journey took her from the shores of Cornwall to Walberswick and eventually to Southwold. Beyond her own practice, she served as a mentor to the YBA artist Damien Hirst. Her work is held in several prestigious collections, including:
Her contributions to modernism have been recognized through major exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and features in exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery.
