Eilleen Mayo (1906-1994) - 1972 Lithograph Summer Blooms

Description

Condition

There are multiple creases to the paper, particularly to the lower right corner.

Size

31.8 x 45.5cm (12.5" x 17.9")
Sheet: 37.7 x 51.6cm (14.8" x 20.3")

Artist Biography

Eilleen Mayo was a painter, illustrator and wood engraver, born in Norwich. She studied briefly at the Slade 1924-25 under Henry Tonks. She later attended the Central School of Arts & Crafts where she studied amongst many subjects, printmaking, calligraphy and lino-cutting with Noel Rooke. In 1927 she attended the Grosvenor School of Modern Art to hone her printmaking skill under Claude Flight.

She was introduced to Laura and Harold Knight and later modelled for them and other artists of the day including Duncan Grant and Dod Procter. After extensive travel during the early 1930's she returned to London in 1936 and furthered her studies at Chelsea Polytechnic, 1936 under Robert Medley and Henry Moore. After World War II she travelled to Paris where she enrolled at the atelier of Fernand Léger, 1948-49. In 1948 with her husband Richard Gainsborough, she founded the Arts News and Review magazine later to become the Arts Review.

In 1952 she emigrated to Australia, and a decade later to New Zealand to be near her family who had moved there thirty years earlier. While in the antipodes she designed a series of postage stamps depicting local mammals and also the Barrier Reef. Mayo exhibited her linocuts at the Redfern Gallery and also showed at the RA, London Group, United Society of Artists, SWE and NEAC. Shortly before her death she was created Dame of the British Empire and examples of her work can be found in the collections of the British Council, British Museum, Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand, Contemporary Art Society and Victoria & Albert Museum. Abbott and Holder held an exhibition of Mayo’s coloured lithographs in 2001.