Melissa Scott Miller: En plein air by Chris Beetles

In conversation with MELISSA SC TT-MILLER

What is your earliest memory of wanting to become an artist?

There are several memories – one is the fact that in my bedroom as a child I had a reproduction of a Van Gogh, a painting of a little church, and I used to think that my mum had done it and that she’d got it all wonky, but I loved it so much. I had a Renoir reproduction as well, and then as I gradually found out about Van Gogh I really wanted to paint. We used to go on holidays to Scotland. My dad and brother used to go shing all the time, and my mother used to read all the time, and there was nothing to do really so I was just always painting and drawing. It just seemed like the natural thing, it was always what I wanted to do.

I wanted to be an illustrator actually, more than anything else, because I loved illustrations in children’s books. I loved Ardizzone and E H Shepard. Even the comics in those days that I used to read, June and School Friend, they had really well done drawings and I used to think it would be the

ultimate to draw for comics. So that’s what really started me. And I had pets – dogs and I had a Siamese cat, and I just obsessively drew my Siamese cat and all the dogs and everything. I used to draw these little imaginary drawings of groups of children and dogs and cats, and I was sort of known for that in my school. All the school magazines have got my drawings in.

How was it living in a creative household with your parents being artists?

My mother went to St Martins and although she sort of stopped painting, loved art and bought paintings. My dad was in the rag trade and he was very good at cutting patterns. He used to take me with him to his factory and give me massive great big bits of pattern cutting paper, and I used to draw on them. He was very precise. My mother was really into antiques and paintings, so if we were in London my mother spent the weekends at Church Street Market. I think that did all really contribute.

How would you describe the impact of the Slade, and the e ect its teachers and other students had early on in your career?

It did have a really big impact because I had been to an all-girls school where I wasn’t really happy, so going to the Slade was really wonderful. I met the most incredible people, I really had fun at rst, and the tutors were great – Je rey Camp, and especially Anthony Green, and then Lucian Freud used to come in, and lots of really good people. I was amazed at how they just encouraged me to do what I wanted to do, they didn’t try to make me work in a certain way. It was very unstructured. I do remember when I rst

Melissa’s father holding a painting he created for her mother after the birth of her brother, 1955

Melissa’s childhood drawing, aged 9

Melissa aged 2 with Sebastian the dachshund, 1961

got there I found it quite di cult, because I had come straight from school and most people had done a foundation course or some people were even a bit older. I was 18 and I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was also Punk days and everybody was going to the pub - I enjoyed that aspect of it as well at rst. I met some amazing people there and a lot of them I’m still friends with.

At the same time, I remember there was a lot of abstract expressionism going on and conceptual art had started –but they didn’t call it that, it was performance art and people were doing these mad performances and it all seemed really over the top. But funnily enough, one of the best people who taught me at the Slade was a performance artist, Stuart Brisley. Once Adrian [AA Gill] said to me ‘there’s loads of room in the performance art studio, let’s go and work in there’. We’d been in the gurative art studio where everybody was ghting for space, so we went into the performance art studio and nobody was using the space, they were all just thinking up their ideas. So me and Adrian just took over, and the students were really angry but Stuart Brisley loved it. I think he was the only person in the whole of my career at the Slade who taught me proper drawing. He used to say ‘look, you’re doing really well but that’s too big…’ He was just brilliant and really kind. He said he loved that me and Adrian had come up there.

My mother absolutely loved the Pre-Raphaelites and I do as well, and you just couldn’t say it at the time – people hated anything like that. And Lowry! I love Lowry and they hated it, so it took me quite a few years to get away from that after I left the Slade. I started to think that I really love sentimental paintings and beautiful things, and so I did try to do what I wanted to even though there was a big feeling away from that… It was interesting times.

So did you nd at art school that it was a struggle to get practical teaching for your painting?

We had models and you could get a model paid. I used to get everyone from the pub, like all these punk rockers, and they’d all get paid by the o ce. When I had my degree show they said it was like the rogues gallery of these portraits of really rough punks. There was life drawing but there wasn’t any speci c teaching. I did nd it di cult when I started teaching at Heatherley’s, which was quite a few years after that. John Walton, who was the head of Heatherley’s, came into my class once and he walked round and looked at all the drawings. Then he said ‘Can you please tell your students about the three tonal values?’ and I was like…What the hell are they? I didn’t admit that I didn’t know, but I had to go and look it up. So I felt like I didn’t know anything like that which I could pass on to anybody, and I still nd that quite di cult.

London is central to so many of your works – as both a resident and artist, can you describe how the city has inspired you over the years?

It has really inspired me. As you say, I grew up in London and I always loved the London streets. I remember when I was a kid – most of my childhood we lived in one place o Kensington High Street and I had a little metal scooter. I used to go up and down all the roads around there, and even when I was very young I loved just going o on my own.

I remember when I did my O-Level art I went and drew bombed-out houses that I’d noticed up near Holland Park. I’ve always really loved it. I always drew the view out of the window where I lived. Even when I was at school on Harley Street, the art room was on the top oor and had a fantastic view of rooftops, so it did make a real impact.

Melissa and AA Gill (middle row, second and third from left) with their fellow peers at The Slade, 1977/78

Left: Melissa’s self-portrait aged 17 which won second prize in The Kellogg’s Children’s Art Competition, 1976/7

Right: Melissa’s portrait of AA Gill, 1981

And then having my own children and getting to know a completely new area in Islington, having my own dog and taking him around, I really got to know places. And then from all the years of drinking I knew all the pubs but then when I got sober, I now know every church hall in London! The reason I’ve got this thing about Mount Street is because the main place I went to meetings was in Farm Street Church. They rented out a room to us on a Sunday and now they’ve got one on the other side in another church that I sometimes go to. Once you get to know that side of London, you get a feel for the community.

Do you feel like London has changed much over the years you’ve been painting it?

It has, in a way. There does seem to be a lot more people, and a lot more tra c. The shops and restaurants are constantly changing, but there’s still the same architecture. It is amazing. Maybe that’s why, particularly at the moment, I’m so into Mayfair. When you look up at all the buildings it is fantastic the way the windows change shape and size as they get higher, and little bits are on the buildings, and suddenly little turrets. I absolutely love that. You don’t get that so much in the outer parts of London. When I had my children, I was very domestic and I was stuck in Islington for years… All the Islington squares and the canal nearby. So now I’ve nally been unleashed onto the rest of London, and it’s quite exciting.

A question we get asked a lot is how you choose where you paint – can you speak a bit on how those decisions are made in the lead up to a painting?

Often they are places I’ve planned on for years, I’ll look at something and I really want to paint it but often it takes me a while before I get round to it. Lately I’ve been thinking that it’s quite a spiritual thing: Like you’ve got this yearning to do something, and I think there’s a lot more to the decisions. I’m very co-dependent, so another reason why I keep painting

around here and around Selfridges is because my son works near there, and I seem to go wherever my family goes. When I had the dog and the kids I really liked painting all the parks, and now [my daughter] Cordy lives in Waterloo I’m starting to see places round there, so that does have quite a lot to do with it.

Then I also think that often I’ll choose a building that I don’t know very well, but when I start to paint it either I remember that I have been there or it reminds me of something. I realise that I’m drawn to it because of a memory. When I choose a building, I’ve got all that going on in my mind. There’s also the practical things, like I’ll choose a place because the weather isn’t very good and there’s a place where I can shelter, or if something like the cherry blossom comes out I’ll think; where’s a good cherry tree that I’ve noticed? This year I did the magnolia at St James’s. I just thought I’ve always wanted to do that magnolia, I’ll see if I can do it. I’m getting a bit bolder as I get older as well.

How do you feel about commission work, perhaps giving that decision to others?

I do like doing commissions because it makes you go to a di erent place and paint something you wouldn’t choose yourself. It produces something else, and leads you on to something else. It’s incredible that somebody can see your vision and think that could t in with their vision, and it usually does. It’s almost like a collaboration. People will say ‘look at this, I’ve always lived with it and it’s really fantastic’, and you begin to see why they felt that way.

People are often fascinated by your underdrawings in charcoal – could you walk us through how you map out a picture?

That is an interesting question actually. It does take me quite a long time, often I have to draw it two or three times. I’ll do a really careful drawing and get almost to the end and I think

Melissa, her brother and mother in Scotland with Griselda and Sebastian the dogs, 1964Melissa, her brother and father visiting their uncle in Paris, 1964/5

it’s not right so I have to rub the whole thing o and start again. So I plan it, I look at the things I want to include like a little building over there, or a chimney over there, and then I have to adjust it to get in the things I want.

The one I’m doing at the moment of Berkeley Square, I thought I’ve got to include the building in the middle but I really like the fact that there’s a road going o , I really want that to be in it, but I also want to have as many trees as possible… So I think what is it about Berkeley Square that I think of? I think of it as being big beautiful plane trees and a feeling of being right in the middle of London. I try to include as much as I can that will say something about the place. I feel a bit unsatis ed if I only do a bit of that.

And when you start applying the paint, you start in an area and work outwards – how do you decide where to begin?

Normally there will be something like a tree that’s at the height of its blossom and so I’ve got to do that rst. I’ll often do the bits I like best rst. I think if you do that really well, it inspires you to make the rest of it really good. If I started with something I didn’t like then I wouldn’t be excited by it. If it’s something good, something I’m really pleased with, then I’m desperate to come back and carry on with it.

How long would you say your sessions are for each stage, does it vary?

Usually like two or three hours, because the sunlight does change so much. Other painters are very true to a certain light but I’m a lot more philosophical about it. I think you’re still capturing the feeling of sunlight as long as it’s not hours later, it doesn’t matter to me too much. I could spend hours correcting each bit but then it gets a bit dead.

Je rey Camp said to me once, ‘if you paint a foot and put six toes on it, it doesn’t matter as long as each toe is lovingly painted’. I thought what the hell is he going on about? But then I realised what he meant and it’s so true. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a shadow of one tree going that way and

one going another way, as long as that bit is so lovingly painted, and so well painted, it’s going to be there for eternity and you know it worked. It doesn’t matter if it all doesn’t make sense but the most important thing is to give something 100 percent.

I got a bit frustrated sometimes when I was teaching when people would say ‘this bit got really di cult so I’ll just do that bit for a while’…I got really annoyed, like no! That’s the time to carry on, you have to break through and keep going at something, at that bit, or you’ll never get that feeling that you’ve got it right.

You work with oil paint (and are often covered in it!). Why is this your preferred medium?

I used to draw all the time. When I went to the Slade I had tried oil paint but I hadn’t really done much oil painting. I was really worried about it because most people were using oil paint and I found it really di cult. I couldn’t understand all the turps and oils. So then because I love drawing I got these really small brushes and I just started drawing with the paint. I felt I was really in control of it and I just learnt to do that, it really works for me. I love oil paint, it’s so versatile, you can change bits. I did do watercolours years ago but I nd it very di cult to be very delicate, the ‘less is more’ kind of thing, and acrylic paint is maybe too thin. I like the thickness of oil paint. I like the feeling of it. And the colours are so good. When I do paint in watercolour it’s a bit like I’m trying to use it like oil, I use it really thickly, and all my pans get used up!

What are the biggest joys and challenges of painting en plein air?

It is a very joyful thing just to get out. I love being outside and actually going somewhere. I like noticing what the area is like and how things tick along there, like shops and restaurants, it’s really interesting being part of it. The fact that I come back quite a few times, it’s so nice because people get to know you and you get to know them. And you never lose that when you go back to that area.

The challenge is people coming up to you – I do nd it di cult because I know they are only being nice but painting is a solitary experience and you really get into that. I did go through a phase where I was just selling paintings to people that came up to me, but I’m so glad now not to have to do that. It’s much better to have a gallery selling them for me and I feel like it’s given me security where I don’t have to worry about that side of things, which has made an enormous di erence to my painting.

I do try to be nice, particularly if its children. A lot of people are very encouraging – nobody is horrible. In fact, it would be quite funny if somebody was horrible, I’d quite enjoy that.

Melissa’s underdrawing for Plane Trees in Berkeley Square [42]

How do you cope with the weather?

It’s di cult – the wind is the worst. Sometimes I’ve been out and I’m trying to hang on to my easel and my canvas at the same time. Often I get really determined if I’ve made the trip there that I’ve got to carry on whatever happens. It can be really hard. But when I’m in that mode of thinking I do work through things, even rain, because oil paint is waterproof for a few minutes. You nd ways around it. Sometimes it’s really hot and that’s also a challenge, I have to wear a hat. The other day I had to keep moving my easel because when the sun is on the painting its really distracting seeing your own great big globules of paint.

It’s quite a physical thing and I like that I feel quite exhausted after I’ve done my painting. Standing up all day and carrying it around… But I would nd it quite di cult being in a studio. I do enjoy doing the ones on the stairs sometimes [of the back garden] so it’s nice to have the best of both worlds. I like it when somebody lets me paint [at their house] like when I was painting at Je rey’s [Archer] place – I wasn’t going to be blown away or anything!

Could you talk a bit about your love of your back garden? When I moved to that at, I was looking for a place with a garden to bring my dog. As I came up the stairs and saw that view I just thought: Oh my God, I love this view, I’ve got to live here – Joey will just have to go to the park. It’s a fantastic view because it’s of lots of peoples’ back gardens and it’s a place in Islington where there’s lot of di erent types of people. Most of the houses are divided into ats and rented out, and people are doing di erent things with their gardens that changes with the seasons. It was just a strange coincidence

that my neighbour was a professional gardener. Him and his wife have put an enormous e ort into their garden, and they’re always working on it so it’s really wonderful. There’s constant things going on, constant changes.

I thought at rst you can’t really work on the stairs even though the view is so fantastic. My son’s room looked out on it and while he was at school I used to do big paintings from his window but he came home. So I moved to the stairs! And what’s good is every di erent stair that I stand on is a completely di erent outlook. It can be really di cult balancing my easel and managing to get a canvas that will t exactly. If anybody rings on the doorbell I can’t answer! But it’s really been great having that view.

We notice animals feature in many of your paintings. Why do you like to include wildlife and pets so often?

Mainly because I’ve always loved cats and dogs – like I said I had a Siamese cat when I was a kid and I was always drawing him, and following him out into the garden and watching what he did. While I’m standing there quietly you do see foxes come along, squirrels, you see them going about their business, enjoying themselves in their world. I do think that’s so fantastic and such a part of it. I have to include them really.

A lot of your pictures have your dog Joey in as well … I really loved Joey. My day was divided into taking Joey for walks and he never really went in that garden because it’s my neighbour’s garden, but I drew him in. He was just such a presence. When I was doing those paintings on the stairs often Joey would be as near as he could possibly get to me. If I stopped for a minute his head would be on my arm, and I’d listen to him panting away and breathing, and occasionally he’d sigh. It’s such a part of it that I felt he always had to go in them. I’m beginning to not put him in now, it’s been three years, but I think I probably always will. I think it’s a very Islington thing to see a Labrador in a back garden and the parks that I go to I often see dogs a lot like Joey. They’re so much part of a London park or garden.

Do you have a bucket list of places you would love to paint – if so, where?

One thing that I would like to do is paint everywhere I’ve ever lived. I was born in a red brick mansion block in South Kensington and then the house we lived in o Kensington High Street, and my school, quite like a trail of places I’ve been and lived. When you’re doing it you go into reverie and it’s quite a comforting thing to do. If you’re painting places you knew and lived in, it’s almost like having a therapy session with that place.

Melissa painting the back garden

Are there any cities in Europe that you’d love to paint, and do you think it would give you the same feeling even though it’s not where you’ve lived?

I would really like to paint Amsterdam. When I was 60, as my birthday present to myself I went on my own to Amsterdam and went to the Van Gogh museum. I drew by the canal and I love those buildings along it. I would love to paint in Amsterdam for a while. I really love Bonnard, Van Gogh and Monet, and I would quite like to try painting wheat elds and things like that.

I also really like New York, I did paint in New York. When I left the Slade I was part of an exhibition in a New York gallery and I met some people who told me to come back and live there, because they had a free at… I lived there for about a year and I could paint on the roof. I painted all these rooftops and water towers, and I did one with the Twin Towers. It was great there, I love all those re escapes on the buildings. We lived in Little Italy in Spring Street and my friend had made a fantastic garden that looked out on the back of tenement buildings. I would love to do that again.

I did live in Mallorca once for a few months and I did a painting of a little bay and shing village. When I brought it back to London and took it to the framers, somebody saw it and said ‘what a lovely painting of a Cornish shing village!’ I thought I just can’t help myself – whatever I do is going to look like England.

Much of your work is tied to the seasons – what is your favourite time of year to paint, and why?

That’s a good question. I like the Spring, the beginning of the Spring, because I like the combination of the fact that you can still see a lot of buildings because trees are bare; and yet there are things coming out that are so bright. I love the Spring blossoms and owers. I like Autumn as well, the colours. It changes because I used to like the Winter and felt like I

couldn’t bear the Summer, and didn’t know what to do with all this greenery. For some reason there was an incredible snobbery about using green at the Slade. Some tutors said you mustn’t use green and went to great pains to avoid it, which I couldn’t really understand but is something I inherited there. But it’s been so nice with you lot, you’ve encouraged me so much that you’ve actually bred a monster! Now I’m thinking I’ll just do loads of green, do what I like. This year has been amazing, all the di erent greens.

Do you have a favourite time of day to paint?

I’m de nitely more of a morning person, I do my best work in the morning. But again, I’ve really enjoyed doing the night time paintings, in the Autumn especially when it gets dark earlier as I’m not very good at staying up late. I have always liked doing night time pictures, but the morning is the best. I’ve also found people have been so nice and even less intrusive at night. Because it’s London there’s always something going on so I’ve never felt in any danger. The night in London is very interesting.

Have you found that art has helped you in other areas of your life?

It’s hard to say really, because I wouldn’t know what life would be like without it. As I’m very co-dependent, I would probably be a really nagging, possessive mother who’s

Melissa visiting the canal in Islington for the rst time, 1989

Melissa painting in St James’s Square, August 2024

constantly on at my children, but I’m busy doing my paintings so they’re sort of let o the hook! It makes you quite philosophical about things and encourages other people in their creativity. It’s really nice to be doing something that you want to do and I know I’m really lucky to have that. It’s nice to hear when people say it cheers them up to see me out there painting. People live with my paintings and say they enjoy them so that is a lovely thing. I feel very privileged to have that. It’s a really nice feeling that you’re bringing pleasure to people.

Who are the day-to-day in uences that you come back to in your work?

I do really love Van Gogh, I have always been obsessed with Van Gogh. I also really like Stanley Spencer. When I was at the Slade they told me about Carel Weight, and everyone used to say I was very like Carel Weight. I do love the way he paints London buildings. And Charles Ginner… but I also love people like Gwen John. I do like the Pre-Raphaelites and it’s been nice learning more recently about artists like Badmin, he’s quite an in uence on me now. I just like painters where nothing is too complicated, and lots of di erent people really, sculptors, illustrators.

Can you speak about your time teaching and how it came about becoming a teacher at Heatherley’s?

A couple of my friends from the Slade who were in my year were teaching there, and my brother also taught there for a little bit. The head of Heatherley’s, John Walton, was amazing. He started up the school, went to the Slade and asked Patrick George ‘have you got some teachers for me?’, so nearly all of us were from the Slade at rst. He was an amazing guy, at one point he said ‘it’s all been worthwhile because all I really wanted to do was to give all the artists a job and keep them painting’. It’s like a happy family there, it’s really nice.

I started teaching there when my daughter was about one. I’ve made some great friendships. It’s also really lovely to see people late in life who have always been good at art. There was a whole generation my age who were probably really good at art but their parents said you can’t do it, and now they get their chance. Recently I remember a guy coming out from the sculpture room at Heatherley’s and he just looked so happy, he was all covered in plaster, and I thought it’s wonderful that people have discovered all of this. They haven’t got the attachment of the art world and they don’t have to work in a certain way, but then that does invariably start to sneak in and people want to be the next Damien Hirst! One of my students, she’s so talented and she really doesn’t care about selling her work – she just does it for the pure joy of doing it. There’s a wonderful world of people who are earning a living by making things, and they’re not to be underrated. There’s lots of people who are artists who are not part of the main art world. I feel like I’ve been in both worlds, in a way. I think that has been quite a good in uence on me, because the Slade was so serious and there were lots of people who were very career minded. I was di erent to other people, because I’ve always just done my own thing even though there was a big feeling toward trends. People did look down on people who made pictures to go above mantlepieces and I was really embarrassed that I knew deep down I was one of those people.

What is it like being part of Artists Societies?

It is nice but it can also be competitive. I’ve made some wonderful friends. The whole idea of it is really nice, the introductions and doing things together.

When I left the Slade, it was hard to earn a living from art and then I discovered the Mall Galleries. It was Patrick George who told me to put some pictures in an exhibition with the Society of Portrait Painters. They were immediately very welcoming and I discovered people much more like me. When I was rst at the Slade and Lucien Freud used to come, he liked my paintings and he told me to never be in a group show. He gave me good advice because he was right, but it was okay for him to say because he had the back up of money. I could see his point, that if you could then it’s lovely to be an individual. I don’t believe there’s a right and a wrong way of painting but there is a snobbery around things in certain areas. You mustn’t let that take over. The truth is, anyone can do it. It’s just an expression.

Family is a big part of your life, you often feature them in your artworks. How do they in uence your painting? They have really in uenced my work. When my children were at primary school, I asked if I could paint from the top room a picture of the playground, it was a really good view. When I look back on it, I was always painting things relevant

Melissa painting at Stanley Kubrick’s estate in Childwickbury, Hertfordshire, 1987

to what was going on [in my life]. With Joey, I did parks and trees a lot more, and now I have [my grandson] Avery it’s quite exciting to think what will come next.

I have done endless portraits of them as well, and then they bring you their friends and interests and if you’re open to it, it’s a whole world. I often think when I’m painting somewhere and I’d like to put a person in, I think I’ll put Cordy in, or [my son] Adam, in a childlike way. I want to put my whole family in. And me – put myself in as well.

And how have you approached self-portraits over the years?

I’ve always done self-portraits since I was a kid, partly because you don’t have to have anyone sit for you. I love a painting of somebody doing something rather than someone just sitting there, and the expression you get when you’re looking is really good, so I’ve always really liked it. I had ve years of di erent self-portraits in the Portrait Awards at the National Gallery and for a while that was my thing. I was surprised really to become a member of the RPP because all I did was self-portraits. Now I feel it’s a bit embarrassing… Who wants to see a 65 year-old woman? Whereas I used to look quite good, so I used to be able to sell them!

Melissa Scott-Miller in conversation with Phoebe Bowsher and Pascale Oakley-Birch at Chris Beetles Gallery, September 2024.

palette, August 2024

Self-portrait, 1992/3

Self-portrait, 2024

Melissa’s

London Skyline

Signed and inscribed ‘View of London, Autumn 2013’ on reverse Oil on canvas

10 x 12 inches

2 Tree of Life Willow Tree in Islington, 2021

Signed with initials and dated 21

Signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘Dec 2021’ on reverse Oil on linen 23 ½ x 23 ½ inches

3 (opposite)

November Back Garden View 2023, Islington

Signed with initials and dated 23

Signed and inscribed with title on reverse Oil on canvas

39 ¼ x 31 inches

Signed with initials and dated 24 Signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘Jan-Feb 2024’ on reverse

Russell Square Tube Station on a Winter Night with Early Blossoming Tree

‘As I came up the stairs and saw that view [for the rst time] I just thought: Oh my God, I love this view, I’ve got to live here …

While I’m standing there quietly you do see foxes come along, squirrels, you see them going about their business, enjoying themselves in their world.’

Last of the Autumn Leaves in an Islington Back Garden

Signed with initials and dated 23

Oil on canvas

31 x 31 inches

Evening Magnolia, St James’s Church

Signed with initials and dated 24

Oil on canvas

20 x 24 inches

‘I don’t believe there’s a right and a wrong way of painting … The truth is, anyone can do it. It’s just an expression.’

7 Spring

Signed with initials and dated 23

Signed, inscribed with title and dated 2023 on reverse

Oil on canvas

19 ¾ x 19 ¾ inches

Signed, inscribed with title and dated 2013 on reverse

10 (opposite)

Avery’s Springtime Nap

Signed with initials and dated 24

Oil on canvas

47 ½ x 39 inches

Exhibited: The New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London, June 2024

Hampstead

Oil on canvas

30 x 40 inches

Looking Down on Elder ower

Bush and Tiled Path, Islington

May 2024

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed and inscribed with title on reverse

Oil on canvas

16 x 12 inches

The Calthorpe Arms

‘I started it last Friday when everyone was really excited about the football, I got really caught up in it, my son had gone over there and got a ticket.

I was looking for a few nights for a pub with England ags, it was quite hard to nd! Found this one –The Calthorpe Arms in Grays Inn Road.

When I started to paint, it brought back loads of memories. I used to drink in that pub with my friends who lived in Calthorpe Street, one of them was in The Pogues ...

I realised that my paintings are often a mixture of what’s going on now in my life and memories from the past, there’s something deep inside that makes me choose the views I paint.’

‘It’s Coming Home!’

The Calthorpe Arms, 2024

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘July 2024’ on reverse Oil on canvas

16 x 20 inches

Spring in a Small Park in Chelsea, 2024

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed and inscribed with title on reverse Oil on canvas

14 x 18 inches

Islington Street at Night with Blossoming Cherry Trees, March-April 2024

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed and inscribed with title on reverse Oil on canvas

19 ¾ x 23 ½ inches

Irises, Little Venice

Signed with initials and dated 24

Oil on canvas

14 x 18 inches

‘Finished this painting this morning of Aliums in Queens Square in the sunshine! They have nearly all gone now but lovely roses have grown in between, I seem obsessed with purple owers at the moment.’

Aliums, Queens Square, Bloomsbury

Signed with initials and dated 24

Oil on canvas

20 x 24 inches

The Copper Beech of Gordon Square

Oil on canvas

¾ x 23 ¾ inches

Holland Park Spring

Signed, inscribed with title and dated 2021 on reverse

Oil on canvas

19 ½ x 27 ½ inches

‘Finished this painting today in Holland Park, I had painted most of it on nicer days we’ve had recently, every year I go and paint there with my Heatherley’s urban landscape class. We have a lovely time and everyone produces great works! It particularly means a lot to me as I grew up near Holland Park and for a couple of years went to a small school in a church called Allandale. I used to make up stories for the younger kids about the Holland Park fairies ... I was also once involved in making sets for an opera that was performed in the open air theatre here ... Lots of memories, I really love Holland Park.’

Holland Park Gardens, May 2024

Signed with initials and dated 24

‘Finished this painting in Holland Park yesterday, of the rose garden there with a heron that always enjoyed a morning stroll around the gardens. My second painting there so far this summer ...’

The Rose Garden, Holland Park, June 2024

Signed with initials and dated ’24

Oil on canvas

24 x 30 inches

‘Finished this painting in Maida Vale yesterday, a little hidden path on the edge of Rembrandt Gardens. For a few weeks I’ve had ve paintings on the go and in the last week managed to nish four of them –but now I’ve started three new ones! All di erent places and times of day or weather conditions ...’

Canal Path in Little Venice

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘June/July 2024’ on reverse

Oil on canvas

20 x 30 inches

22 (opposite)

City Road Lock, Islington

Late Evenings

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘May/June 2024’ on reverse Oil on canvas

31 ½ x 23 ½ inches

‘Yesterday I nished this painting of part of Cheyne Walk Gardens, painted over about ve days. I nd that often one painting leads onto the next and this was inspired by the last painting where I painted these houses in the distance from Battersea Park. Also when I walked past I just loved the yellow tree and the owers growing along the Embankment Gardens. And the incredible grandeur of the houses and the colours of the bricks, and I was charmed by a visit from the Canada geese, come over from the nearby river!

To get there I would walk down Oakley Street and would remember when my friend Marcia’s mother lived there, and strangely it was Jem and Marcia who had lived in Calthorpe Street which was the scene of my last night painting, and I remembered the wonderful Pogues record, ‘Misty Morning, Albert Bridge’, which has young Jem and Marcia on the cover!’

with initials and dated 24

View of Cheyne Row Gardens

‘Very green June! My view looks wonderful ... Sometimes I paint the view from my window in the mornings because it would take a long time to travel back and forth somewhere, and I can’t wait to go and see my little Grandson. Today is one of those days!’

The Race

Signed with initials and dated 24 Signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘Summer 2024’ on reverse

‘Had a lovely day at Childwickbury today in St Albans, nished my painting of a view of the pond which I started two years ago at the now sadly missed Childwickbury Arts Fair. It was lovely to see my friend and wonderful artist Christiane Kubrick. I saw two of my old paintings hanging there and a lovely one Christiane painted of me, many years ago when I used to paint there and lived there for a while ...’

Pond at Childwickbury Summer 2022-2024

Signed with initials and dated 24 Signed and inscribed with title on reverse

‘Painted over the last few lovely sunny days, a view of Thornhill Square. My children went to nearby nurseries and primary schools and always played here.

The very wet and not so warm June and early July have made everything stay green and owers bloom for longer than I’ve noticed in recent years. The gardeners have also done a wonderful job in this square –full of memories, and always the sound of children laughing and playing.’

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed, inscribed with title and dated

2024’ on reverse Oil on canvas

20 x 30 inches

Thornhill Square

‘Finished this painting of a view in Primrose Hill of the oating Chinese restaurant on the canal, painted from about eight in the evening until ten. It took about ve evenings trying to capture a moment in time really before the street lights fully came on. I thought it would be deserted on the bridge but it was actually incredibly busy with people going for a run or evening walk.

I’ve seen this sight for years and always wanted to paint it, I’ve never been to the restaurant though – maybe now I will make the e ort because I heard people say such nice things about it as I was painting there!’

View of Canal in Regents Park with Floating Chinese Restaurant

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘July 2024’ on reverse Oil on canvas

18 x 24 inches

28 (opposite) Islington Back Garden with Two Cats in July 2023

Signed with initials and dated 23

Signed and inscribed with title on reverse Oil on linen

30 x 24 inches

29 (above) Albert Bridge from Battersea Park

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘July 2024’ on reverse Oil on canvas 16 x 31 ¼ inches

30 View looking towards Battersea Bridge

Signed with initials and dated 24 Oil on canvas 20 x 24 inches

‘My latest painting of a view of King’s Cross looking across the canal, the third one I’ve made from this view. The rst one now hangs in a lovely home in Hawaii, the second one is hanging in the RA Summer Exhibition and will eventually go to live in Cornwall!

The area has changed a bit ... The little cat in the new painting is called Ships, people living on the boats told me all about him whilst I was painting there.’

Handyside Gardens, Kings Cross

‘Finished this painting today, the tropical corner of St James’s Square. A wonderfully kept garden in a beautiful square, full of interesting buildings such as the London Library. It was lovely to be able to keep the painting at Chris Beetles Gallery and swap it over for my sunny afternoon/evening painting I’m doing in Mount Street Gardens. Phoebe Ross from the gallery also did a lovely drawing of me working under the beautiful palm tree.

I’ve been painting St James’s Square since last week and I’m building up a collection of paintings of London squares and gardens which will be part of an exhibition in a couple of months.’

The Tropical Corner of St James’s Square

with initals and dated 24

‘Painted this view of St James’s Square in Piccadilly over the last few days of lovely sunny weather. I had painted a view looking north of the tropical corner and whenever I packed up my easel I would look in the opposite direction and think that’s a great view as well! It was lovely painting there, the square is so beautifully kept and managed and has a very friendly atmosphere. I was grateful to be given permission to paint there ...’

St James’s Square, Looking East Signed with initials and dated 24

on canvas

x 30 inches

‘Finished this painting of Mount Street Gardens a couple of days ago, painted on sunny evenings. I’ve painted a few paintings here, this place really means a lot to me, it’s got a very spiritual vibe ...’

‘It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a shadow of one tree going that way and one going another way, as long as that bit is so lovingly painted, and so well painted, it’s going to be there for eternity and you know it worked. It doesn’t matter if it all doesn’t make sense but the most important thing is to give something 100 percent.’

‘Finished my painting of Lonsdale Square on sunny late afternoons. I lived there for twenty years and brought up my children in an attic council at in the corner.

Years before I lived there, Lucian Freud used to visit his four children from Suzy Boyt who lived there. When I saw him at a party given by Rose Boyt about fteen years ago, he asked me where I live now and when I said Lonsdale Square he said ‘it’s very you!’ – not sure what he meant, but I took it as a compliment!

It is an interesting square although quite di erent now I expect ...’

Lonsdale Square, Summer

Signed with initials and dated 24

inscribed with title and dated 2024 on reverse

‘Finished this painting yesterday, I keep passing this view. As a kid I went past it in the bus every day on the way to school. I think the front is quite beautiful and now I want to paint it again, close up!’

View of Selfridges from Balderton Street Signed with initials and dated 24 Oil on canvas

20 x 16 inches

‘When you look up at all the buildings it is fantastic the way the windows change shape and size as they get higher, and little bits are on the buildings, and suddenly little turrets.’

The Science Museum Early Morning Queue, End of Summer 2023 Signed with initials and dated 23 Signed and inscribed with title on reverse

on linen

½ x 35 ¼ inches

Painting in West eld Park

Signed with initials and dated 23

Signed, inscribed with title and dated 2023 on reverse

Oil on canvas

12 x 16 inches

‘Finished this last night, sunny evenings in Mount Street painted outside a shop. I love the grand buildings and doorways in Mayfair and it’s a very popular street in late summer. I was born at home in a red brick mansion at in South Kensington and I think that’s why I have an obsession with them.’

Doorway in Mount Street, Summer Evening

Signed with initials and dated 24

Signed, inscribed with title and dated 2024 on reverse

Oil on canvas

20 x 16 inches

Flower Bed

Signed and dated 2017 on reverse

14 x 10 inches

‘My painting of owers in St James’s Park, there were some lovely crocuses and so many squirrels and ducks and Canada geese.’

Queen Anne’s Gate, from St James’s Park; A September Flower Bed

Signed with initials and dated 24 Oil on canvas

21 ¼ x 29 inches

‘Finished my painting of Berkeley Square today, painted over ve or six sunny afternoons. There are such beautiful plane trees there, some of the oldest in London. There’s a lot of building work going on, they have demolished the building where AT Kearneys had their o ces – 25 years ago they were sponsoring the RA Summer Exhibition and they held two exhibitions in their o ces. I had some work in them and it was an incredible boost to my career, and I got to know lots of amazing artists such as Adrian Berg, Olwyn Bowey, William Bowyer and others ...’

Plane Trees in Berkeley Square

on canvas

x 30 inches

‘We often take my Grandson to a playground round the corner and a couple of weeks ago I saw this amazing tree of pink owers and loved that it was behind a brick wall with lots of lovely buildings around it. It took a few sunny mornings and I really enjoyed listening to the talking and singing of people working in a kitchen of a restaurant next to where I was working, they were preparing the day’s dishes and lovely aromas drifted over, and noises of chopping and sizzling …’

‘Finished this last night, ‘colonnade’ a mews near Russell Square, the building at the end is the back of the Russell Hotel. I actually started this at the beginning of the year when there were no leaves on the tree, they were doing a lot of building work around the entrance so I had to wait to nish it. It was really hard to see what I was doing, even with my head torch! But I enjoyed trying to paint the slightly wet cobble stone road.’

View of Colonnade Mews, Russell Square, at Night Signed with initials and dated 24 Oil on canvas

23 ¾ x 23 ¾ inches

‘I’ve painted lots of paintings here; I always wanted to paint this lovely Horse Chestnut tree, it turns autumnal very early on. I was very sad that there weren’t many boats there, apparently they’ve drastically put up the mooring charges. It used to be full of life and character and now it’s very quiet, what a great shame. Everything has to come to an end I suppose …’

Start of Autumn, Vincent Terrace Gardens, Islington

Signed with initials and dated 24

inscribed with title and dated 2024 on reverse

on canvas

‘The yellow and green areas will soon be turning red so I’ll be back to paint another version. I miss the double parked line of boats but it was nice and peaceful there over the last few days.’

View of Vincent Terrace Gardens, Islington

Signed with initials and dated 24 Oil on canvas

30 x 24 inches

Melissa Scott Miller: En plein air

MELISSA SCOTT-MILLER

En plein air

MELISSA SCOTT-MILLER

RBA RP NEAC

CHRIS BEETLES GALLERY

MELISSA SCOTT-MILLER

Melissa Scott-Miller RBA RP NEAC (born 1959)

In conversation with MELISSA SC TT-MILLER

The Calthorpe Arms