Margaret Mellis - Modernist Constructs by The Redfern Gallery Ltd

Margaret Mellis Modernist Constructs

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Bogman, 1990 Driftwood construction 166 × 48 cm

Margaret Mellis 1914– 2009

Harriet Baker

FINDING

their creation was spontaneous, intuitive, and yet highly considered. Working slowly, Mellis

In the late 1970s, Margaret Mellis began to

described it as ‘feeling’ for colour, shape and

keep pieces of driftwood she found during her

texture. The end announced itself. She wrote:

walks along the Suffolk coast. She selected them

‘When I’ve got to the point where nothing can

with an artist’s eye, for their qualities of shape

be removed or rearranged without undoing or

or colour, and collected them as she collected

spoiling what I have arrived at, something else

other things in her house: old keys, pieces of

has emerged out of the transfigured total.’ It

board and wooden trays, bits of glass, the skins

gave her ‘great satisfaction, like reading a good

of oranges and grapefruits crisp from drying

poem.’

on the Aga. Everything was kept with a future purpose in mind, could take on new life. Keys for

Late in her life, Mellis had discovered a new

collages; fruit peel for lighting fires.

visual language. She was filled with a renewed

sense of purpose, and worked vigorously. In

In her studio, the driftwood began to mount up.

driftwood, she had found a way of joining

She called it her wood pile. ‘The place is like a

together the strands of her artistic practice. For

warehouse,’ she wrote to a friend. And yet out of

many years she had moved between abstraction

the pile shapes began to form. Pieces of wood

and figuration, between painting, collage and

laid on the floor seemed to pull others into

construction. At last, she had found the means

patterns and configurations. Details emerged:

to say what she wanted to say.

rusted nail heads, flecked paint, edges chewed by the sea. Colours corresponded, a palette of

ST IVES

faded oranges, greens and blues. Making these abstract constructions took Mellis a long time.

Though in many ways Mellis’s constructions

Only afterwards did their figurative characters

were startlingly new, they synthesised a life’s

emerge: they became ships, musical instruments,

work, demonstrating her commitment to colour

folkloric human forms. She numbered the

and her interest in precise and abstract forms.

constructions up to fifty, before they took

They also tunnelled into the past, linking early

on atmospheric names of their own: Marsh

experiments with late ones, and one coastal

Music, Bogman, Black Moon. The process of

landscape to another. In the early 1940s, Mellis

Banquet, 1939 Oil on canvas 63.5 × 76 cm

had been at the forefront of developments in

of the window of a large house facing the sea,

British abstraction. She had worked alongside

Stokes asked if she knew of anywhere nearby for

Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo in St Ives. But

sale. She told him she had put her house on the

her involvement there, and her role in bringing

market that day. Soon afterwards they moved in,

the artists together in the Cornish harbour

and the evacuation of the Hepworth-Nicholson

town, was almost immediately forgotten and

family to Cornwall was arranged.

overlooked. Leaving St Ives after seven years, she sought a new beginning for both her

Mellis later remembered Ben Nicholson and

personal life and her work. She set the distance

Barbara Hepworth’s arrival in Cornwall taking

between herself and St Ives, which became both

place during a thunderstorm. She watched as

a blessing and a curse. Once dislodged from the

the car drove up to Little Parc Owles, ‘and out

group, her reputation floated freely. She worked

of it tumbled three tiny children, a big nurse and

independently, but association might have

a cook, followed by Barbara and Ben.’ It was 25

made her better known.

August 1939, nine days before the declaration of war.

In early 1939, Mellis and her husband, the painter and critic Adrian Stokes, began to plan a

The arrivals joined an already crowded

refuge outside of London for their artist friends.

household. Along with Mellis and Stokes, Bill and

They had met in Paris and married in 1938, and

Nancy Coldstream were staying with their young

lived in Bloomsbury where they were students

girls. Though it had a large garden with palm

at the Euston Road School. With bombs on the

trees, the house had only four upstairs rooms.

city imminent, they left their flat on Tottenham

The Coldstreams slept in the passage because

Court Road for the coast in the hope of finding a

the other rooms were full. After they left, the four

place that would suit a group of artists engaged

remaining artists assumed their places for the

in shared living. They travelled through Norfolk

first months of the war: ‘Ben worked in Adrian’s

and Suffolk, where they looked round a Martello

studio, Adrian kept his big room at the sea end

in Aldeburgh, but settled for Cornwall, where

of the house where he had his desk and books.

Stokes had holidayed and which reminded

Barbara worked in their bedroom where she did

Mellis of her childhood in East Lothian. They

drawings because there was not enough room

found Little Parc Owles by chance. In Carbis

to make sculpture. The triplets and the nurse

Bay, seeing a woman shaking table linen out

lived in my studio and I worked in my bedroom.

This went on for four months which meant a lot

tabletop upwards and shortening perspective.

of hard work and organisation.’ Much of this

Nicholson was taken with the work, and

fell to the Stokes’s. Adrian, who was writing

encouraged her to use new materials. Mellis

Venice: An Aspect of Art, planted potatoes while

remembered later: ‘Ben had been saying to

Margaret looked after chickens and bees.

me, “Do a collage, do a collage”, so I started in July [1940] and became completely engrossed

Despite inevitable domestic tensions, artistic

in them.’ Often, she used household materials:

relationships flourished. Mellis and Stokes

a sticker for mouthwash (Blue, Green, Red

visited Alfred Wallis at 3, Back Road West and

and Pink, 1941); a label for wool underwear

bought paintings to hang in Little Parc Owles.

(Sobranie, 1942); a crossword puzzle (Third

Mellis insisted on paying Wallis more than he

Collage, July 1940). Yet despite their playfulness,

asked for his work. They also commissioned

Mellis’s collages display pristine formal qualities,

pieces from the Leach pottery, including a

the materials chosen for their feel and shape

green-glazed tea bowl with fluted sides. Soon,

to create dialogues in angle and texture. She

Hepworth and Nicholson were followed by the

also began making constructions in paper,

Gabos, who lived in a bungalow nearby. After

cardboard and wood which shared qualities

four months, and at the Stokeses’ expense,

with Nicholson’s relief-work. But Mellis was

Hepworth and Nicholson moved to Dunluce,

adamant that her style wouldn’t change. She

before taking on Chy-an-Kerris, a large and

didn’t like her works to have a ‘perfect finish’

shabby house at the far end of Carbis Bay, in

and insisted on colour. In Collage with Red

1942. In October 1940, Mellis and Stokes’s son,

Triangle (1940), which the artist considered her

Telfer, was born.

first real construction, five paper elements abut on a grey-green ground. A red triangle sails

When Nicholson moved into the Stokeses’

downwards towards the centre. It’s an exercise

house in Carbis Bay, Mellis was on the cusp of

in layering and transparency, but also simplicity,

an experimental period in her work. She had

a play of straight lines and curves.

just finished Banquet (1939), a large figurative painting of a table set for dinner, with glinting

Mellis’s constructions pleased her peers. Gabo

goblets and half a salmon at its centre. But

had liked Collage with Red Triangle so much he

despite her traditional subject matter, Mellis had

requested Mellis make him another, which he

eschewed conventional spatiality, tipping the

returned to her when he left St Ives for the States

in 1946. Nicholson selected Brown Construction

STILL LIFE

(1941) for inclusion in New Movements in Art, an important exhibition of abstract art held at the

For the next three years, Mellis lived with

London Museum in 1942.

Davison in a château in Antibes in the south of France. They lived off vegetables and

Towards the end of the war, Adrian Stokes

goat’s milk. She returned to representational

began a relationship with Mellis’s younger

painting. One of her first works from this

sister, Ann. The marriage ended. Despite the

period, Still-life with Melon (1947), evokes the

friends she had made in St Ives, Mellis found

themes she had been exploring before she

little support for a divorcing woman and single

took up constructivism in the 1940s. A tabletop

mother. She left St Ives in 1946, and for a long

composition, the painting depicts a still-life

time afterwards rejected the abstraction she

arrangement of vessels and food. But there are

had come to through Nicholson. The pain of

glimpses of abstraction in the frilled candle, the

her divorce fused with her art. She left England

gaping melon, the moony compotier, the grapes

for France with Telfer and the painter Francis

seen through the glass. The painting shows

Davison, whom she would marry in 1948. Her

Mellis’s command of colour, recalling her training

departure was necessary for personal reasons,

with the Scottish colourists at Edinburgh College

though she would always grapple with the effect

of Art.

it had on her career. She left St Ives just as the town was establishing itself as the vanguard of

In 1950, Mellis and Davison returned to England

modern British art. With the support of Nicholson,

and lived at Church Farm Cottage in the village

her experiments in collage and construction

of Syleham, twenty miles from the Suffolk coast.

formed an important contribution to early

They both had studios in the garden. Mellis

Cornish abstraction. Yet in the years following

continued to tread between abstraction and

her departure, she was labelled his disciple and

figuration. In her notebooks, she sketched

her work became little known until late in her life.

the cottage in charcoal and repeatedly drew

‘Everything was smashed up,’ she remembered of

arrangements of slender, simplified bottles.

the period, ‘and I couldn’t even go on with what I

She painted large landscapes in which natural

was doing, so I went right back to the beginning

forms were reduced to bands and blocks of

of where I left off representational painting. I

pure colour: Blue Lighthouse (1952-4), Curtain

started all over again.’

Blowing over Landscape (c.1954), Floating

Tree (1958). And she began to paint flowers –

the assembled pieces. She was drawn to the

drooping, gone to seed – and in 1956 opened

wood’s textural qualities: its edges, chewed

out an envelope on which she drew anemones in

ragged or smoothed and scalloped by the

a glass vase.

sea; splinters, spikes and nails. But while the process was sculptural, she had a painter’s eye.

The couple later moved to a townhouse

Colour was the most important element. She

in Southwold, their work piling up against

cleaned the driftwood but resisted painting

the walls and blocking entry to the sitting

it. Colour had to work with shape and texture,

room. Mellis was still painting, while Davison

and texture and shape with colour, to form the

worked in collage. Her work was progressing

whole. Afterwards, the meaning of the piece

steadily towards abstraction: in the 1960s, she

would become clear. In Marsh Music (1992), a

completed colour studies, and painted onto

blue rudder looks like a musical instrument, the

raw canvas which gave her, as she wrote to Ben

thin sticks of wood looping and crossing it like

Nicholson, a ‘nice free feeling.’ By the 1970s, she

a string of melancholy notes. In Evening Walk

was being pulled away from paint. She began to

(1986), a paddle striated with chipped white

work with paper again, and completed a series

paint is placed against a block of white wood,

of reliefs, much like the work she had done in the

like a patch of sun. An orange curve dips below

1940s. The lessons and experiments of St Ives

the horizon line. A second paddle, burnt orange,

were resurfacing in her work.

tilts, as if the figure and its shadow move in tandem along the beach.

After Davison’s death in 1984, Mellis abandoned painting and turned to constructions in

When she found a half-submerged boat

driftwood. Her wood pile was growing, and out

skeleton on the marsh, Mellis laid it on the floor

of it shapes emerged. When the beach yielded

of her studio where it stayed for many months.

little by way of treasure, friends would bring her

‘It was nearly too good to do anything with,

the things they had found along the shoreline,

but not quite, because almost without touching

or on the marsh. Mellis worked liked a sculptor,

them bits of wood came out of my wood pile

selecting an element – a rudder, a paddle, a

and lay down on the broken bones, leaving

large or striking piece of wood – around which

little gaps and splits of different shapes and

the work would form. Or she would create a

sizes,’ she wrote. ‘They tilted slightly at different

substructure, a tray-like form, on which to hold

angles. I kept going to see what was happening

Still Life with Melon, c. 1947 Oil on canvas 65 × 54 cm

when I was supposed to be doing something

MISSIVES

else.’ She kept adding pieces to it but also kicked it out of shape. After months of accrual,

Bits of wood, pieces of glass, fruit peel, keys,

she worked quickly – ‘I screwed everything into

envelopes. Mellis liked hearing letters thud

place. By then I knew exactly where each bit

onto the mat. A friend asked her to draw

needed to go. There was no choice… they had

dandelions for a birthday present, and so

to be fixed at once. They couldn’t wait another

she unfolded an envelope, flattening it, and

minute’ – and was surprised to see a man there.

drew the flowers across its creases. Others

The figure appears to be walking, hulking in

followed. Envelopes presented a formal

form and graceful in posture, as if risen from

dilemma, a network of surfaces, of angles and

the marsh. ‘Are those his feet which don’t touch

folds. She liked the transparent windows of

the ground, but seem to hang on either side of

business envelopes. She liked their blue linings.

what started as his body and which is burnt

Sitting at her kitchen table at night, she drew

at the bottom?’ The Bogman had emerged not

vases of wild and garden flowers: willowherb

just from the forms placed together, but also

and butterbur, poppies, roses, hollyhocks,

from ‘the left-out shapes, the splits and gaps.’

marigolds and sage. Sometimes, she tilted

Negative space, alongside colour, texture

the envelopes, transforming them into jaunty

and shape, was important. Mellis wrote of the

irregular diamonds. These works continued into

process:

the 1990s, forming a direct link to her collages

When I start putting pieces of wood together

of the 1940s, in which she had experimented

I am only aware of the colour-shape relations.

with paper and layers. Yet her early collages

I don’t have any idea what may happen on the

were works of containment, a training of angles

way or at the end or whether I shall use the bits

into place. Working with envelopes, Mellis had

I started with or end up with completely different

arrived at something spontaneous and free.

pieces. I am working in an abstract way,

The drawings, though no less formal than the

feeling the colour, shape, texture, size together.

early collages, were works of expansion, the

Something begins to happen, sometimes

paper opening itself out, and representing

immediately, sometimes after a long struggle.

connection, growth, friends, and gifts. They

When the thing finishes happening, there is

provided the opportunity for experiment and

something interesting that you didn’t know

possibility. ‘The envelope is as important as the

about before.

flowers,’ she later reflected. ‘There are so many

different shapes, sizes, textures, patterns and colours… and the flowers change every day so each drawing is different even if it is the same lot of flowers. Here is an unending source of inspiration.’ Mellis’s work had looped back on itself, while also making itself new. Her driftwood constructions contained the templates of her earlier Cornish experiments; in her envelopes, her first collages lingered in the seams. Mellis had broken away but also returned, acknowledging her debt to Nicholson, Gabo and St Ives. It was a process of self-recognition, of understanding her work as standalone but also associated, a series of free-floating elements drawn into

Margaret Mellis in her studio, c. 1990

place. For many years, Mellis worked without the appreciation she deserved, while her story was subsumed into the myth-making of St Ives. Broad histories miss the details: a tablecloth shaken out of a window in a Cornish breeze changes the course of modern British art. One hopes she will be recognised for her role in the development of British abstraction, but also for her vision: her synthesis of colour, texture and shape, her eye for timeworn things deserving new life, for a life’s work. September, 2021

PAINTINGS

Untitled: Still Life with Black Banana, 1937 Oil on canvas 56 × 70 cm

Construction with Yellow Oval, 1941 Collage: papers, ink and pencil on paper 35 × 32 cm

Collage with Red Oval, 1942 Mixed media and collage on paper 13 × 19 cm

Self-Portrait in Yellow Dress, 1950 Oil on canvas 46 × 38 cm

White Wine Bottle and Candlestick, c. 1952-53 Oil on canvas 56 × 46 cm

Still Life with Champagne and Tomatoes, c. 1952-53 Oil on canvas 61 × 50.6 cm

Blind Woman, 1954 Oil on board 91 × 70 cm

Flowers: Black and White, 1958 Oil on board 40 × 57 cm

Girl and Flowers (Orange and Purple), 1959 Oil on board 71 × 91.5 cm

Flower Girl (Blue), 1960 Oil on board 61 × 63.5 cm

Moon Shadow, 1982-83 Oil on unprimed canvas 35.8 × 30.6 cm

Unripe and Ripe, 1983 Oil on unprimed canvas 36 × 36 cm

Reliefs and Constructions

Ivory Relief (Skull), 1970 Relief 18.8 × 18.8 cm

Little Boy: Blue on Pink, 1970 Relief 17.8 × 17.8 cm

Pink and Blue, 1971 Relief 17.8 × 17.8 cm

Four ‘Unicorn’, 1979 Driftwood construction 43 × 42 cm

Dead Flowers, c. 1979 Driftwood construction 87.6 × 47 cm

Eighteen, 1980 Driftwood construction 36 × 30 cm

Sixteen, 1980 Driftwood construction 47 × 41 cm

Six, 1980 Driftwood construction 49 × 58 cm

Twenty-Six, 1981 Driftwood construction 35 × 18 cm

Untitled, 1981-82 Driftwood construction 30 × 30 cm

Twenty-Seven, 1981-82 Driftwood construction 67 × 46 cm

Thirty-Six, 1983 Driftwood construction 63.5 × 53.3 cm

Thirty-Two, 1983 Driftwood construction 45.1 × 66.6 cm

Toy Cupboard (Thirty), 1983 Driftwood construction 54.6 × 59 cm

Cucu, 1985 (reworked in 2001) Driftwood construction 38 × 41 cm

Resurrection, 1985 Driftwood construction 47 × 23 cm

Evening Walk, 1986 Driftwood construction 38 × 51.1 cm

Icon, 1986 Driftwood construction 35 × 25 cm

The Hermit, 1989 Driftwood construction 38 × 20 cm

Passing, 1990 Driftwood construction 66 × 65 cm

Rust Yellow, 1990 Driftwood construction 89 × 110 cm

Fisherman, 1990-91 Driftwood construction 124 × 80 cm

Heap, 1991 Driftwood construction 67 × 64.8 cm

Cloud Cuckoo Land, 1991 Driftwood construction 78 × 99 cm

Tree, 1992 Driftwood construction 75 × 60 cm

In the Night, 1993 Driftwood construction 77 × 99 cm

The Bottom of The Deep Blue Sea, 1996-97 Driftwood construction 82 × 103 cm

F, 1997 Driftwood construction 146 × 146 cm

Green Heart, 2002 Driftwood construction 53 × 39 cm

Ribbed, 2002 Driftwood construction 110 × 55 cm

Envelope drawings

Fuchsias, 1975 Pastel and crayon on envelope 42 × 31 cm

Dandelion Clocks, 1987 Crayon on envelope 25 × 36 cm

Two Dead Poppies with Shadows, 1987 Crayon on envelope 30 × 32 cm

Two Roses, 1987-88 Pastel and crayon on envelope 31 × 25 cm

Dead Tulips, 1988 Chalk on envelope 29 × 32 cm

Matilda’s Rosebuds, 1988 Pastel and crayon on envelope and card 28 × 31 cm

Prue’s Poppies, 1989 Pastel and crayon on envelope 42 × 31 cm

Black Leaves in Blue Bottle, c. 1990 Crayon on envelope 31 × 24 cm

Hollyhock, Marigold with Sage, c. 1990 Crayon on envelope 25 × 35 cm

Clematis and Lily, c. 1990 Chalk on envelope 40.6 × 35.6 cm

Purple Pansies, Pink, Envelope Crayon and gouache on envelope 27.1 × 29.5 cm

Auriculas in a pot, 1992 Pastel and crayon on envelope 19 × 25 cm

Iris and Daffodil, 1992 Chalk on envelope 36 × 27 cm

Two Poppies on Blue Envelope, c. 1994 Crayon on envelope 36 × 24 cm

Untitled Pastel and crayon on envelope 24 × 26 cm

Untitled, c. 1995 Pastel and crayon on envelope 22 × 23 cm

Untitled, c. 1995 Pastel and crayon on envelope 23 × 24 cm

Barley, 1995-96 Pastel and crayon on envelope 38 × 38 cm

Green in Green, 1995 Crayon on envelope 34 × 41 cm

Ian’s Dried Peony and Hyacinth II Pastel and chalk on envelope 33 × 33 cm

Pansy and Marigold on Red Envelope, 1999 Crayon on envelope 35 × 25 cm

Selected Biography 1914 1915 1929

Margaret Mellis at Edinburgh College of Art, c.1930

1933 1936 1937 1938 1940 1945 1947 1948 1950 1963 1969 1975 1978 1984 1987 1997 2001 2009

With Wilhelmina Barns-Graham at Edinburgh College of Art, c.1933

Selected solo exhibitions 1959 1967 1968 1969 1970 1972 1976 1982 1987 1990 1991 1992 1994 1996 1997 2001 2005 2008 2009 2011 2015 2016 2021

Born in Wu-Kung-Fu, China, to Scottish parents Moved to Scotland Studied at Edinburgh College of Art, alongside William Gear and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham As recipient of the Andrew Grant Travelling Scholarship, studied in Paris under André Lhote Fellowship at Edinburgh College of Art Studied at Euston Road School, London Married Adrian Stokes, and together they moved to Little Parc Owles in Carbis Bay, near St. Ives, befriending fellow artists such as Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo Constructivist period (working in collage and relief carving) Returned to painting Left Carbis Bay, after the break-up of her marriage, and lived with Francis Davison in a derelict château on the Cap d’Antibes, France Married Francis Davison Moved with Francis Davison to a remote smallholding in Syleham, Suffolk, and painted bold, simplified still lifes and landscapes Began a series of paintings known as ‘colour structures’ Started making painted reliefs Moved to Southwold, Suffolk Made her first driftwood construction Death of Francis Davison aged 65 Began a series of drawings on used envelopes Befriended and mentored a young Damien Hirst, who visited her in Southwold Major retrospective exhibition, which opened in Edinburgh, and toured to London and Orkney Ceased to produce new work due to senile dementia Died on March 17th aged 95

The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh University of East Anglia Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford Grabowski Gallery, London University of Stirling Basil Jacobs Gallery, London Compass Gallery, Glasgow Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney Redfern Gallery, London Redfern Gallery, London Peter Pears Gallery, Aldeburgh Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk (with Francis Davison) Redfern Gallery, London Bede Gallery, Jarrow (with Francis Davison) City Art Centre, Edinburgh (and toured to London and Orkney) Margaret Mellis, Austin/Desmond, London & Newlyn Gallery, Penzance Paintings & Reliefs ‘68-‘78, Austin/Desmond, London Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia Constructions, Austin/Desmond, London Envelope Drawings, Austin/Desmond, London Wills Lane Gallery, St Ives Pier Arts Centre, Orkney (with Damien Hirst) Margaret Mellis, Paintings & Constructions, Redfern Gallery, London Margaret Mellis: Modernist Constructions, Towner Eastbourne

Selected group exhibitions 1942 1950 1952 1958

With Francis Davison on their honeymoon in Venice, 1948

1962 1963 1965 1966 1967 1968 1970 1973 1977 1978 1982 1985 1989 1992 1993 1995 2000 2011 2015 2017

New Movements in Art: Contemporary Work in England, London Museum, Lancaster House, London 18th Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture by Artists of Fame and of Promise, Leicester Galleries, London The Mirror and the Square, New Burlington Galleries, London International Guggenheim Award, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (and toured to Brighton and Manchester) Joyce Batty, Margaret Mellis, William Crozier, A.I.A. Gallery, London Ten Painters, A.I.A. Gallery, London John Moores, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool John Moores, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Women’s International Art Club Exhibition, Galleria Numero, Firenze Open Paintings Exhibition, Ulster Museum, Belfast (and toured to Dublin) Women’s International Art Club Exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery, London 1st Edinburgh Open 100, David Hume Tower, Glasgow Colour Rhythm Colour, Oxford Gallery, Oxford Margot Perryman, Margaret Mellis, Jake Kempsell, Norman Adams, Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh Douglas Allsop, Laurence Anthony, Stephen Collingbourne, Francis Davison, Margaret Mellis, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge Cornwall 1945-1955, New Art Centre, London 1st Open East Anglian Exhibition, Norwich (First Prize) Objects (Recent Acquisitions), Victoria and Albert Museum, London The Women’s Art Show 1550-1970, Castle Museum, Nottingham St Ives 1939-64, Tate Gallery, London Scottish Art since 1900, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (and toured to London) Artists from Cornwall, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol Inaugural Exhibition, Tate St Ives The Kettle’s Yard Open: Twenty East Anglian Artists, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge The Scottish Connection: Contemporary Paintings from the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation, John Innes Centre, Norwich Summer 2011, Tate St Ives Mellis-Stokes: Colour and Form, Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow Modern Scottish Women: Painters and Sculptors 1885-1965, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh Carved, Cast, Constructed, British Sculpture 1951-91, Marlborough Gallery, London

Selected public collections

With Patrick Heron in Paris, c.1990

Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London British Museum, London City Art Centre, Edinburgh Contemporary Art Society, London Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Government Art Collection, London Jerwood Collection, Hastings Museums Sheffield Perth Museum and Art Gallery Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia Scottish Arts Council Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh Southampton City Art Gallery Tate, London Victoria and Albert Museum, London 79

With special thanks to Harriet Baker and Telfer Stokes. Essay © Harriet Baker, 2021 Catalogue © The Redfern Gallery, 2021 Photography of works: Douglas Atfield and Alex Fox Design: Graham Rees Design Images: © The Estate of Margaret Mellis 2021 Published to coincide with the exhibition: Margaret Mellis: Modernist Constructs at Towner Eastbourne 16 October 2021 – 30 January 2022 Published by The Redfern Gallery, London 2021 ISBN: 978-0-948460-88-3 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying recording or any other information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the gallery. front cover:

F, 1997 illustrated on page 63 inside front cover:

Margaret Mellis in her studio at Lydstep House Southwold, Suffolk 1990 Photo: Rod Shone opposite:

F, 1997 (detail) illustrated on page 63