Margaret Mellis (British, 1914-2009) Bottles 63.2 x 75.7 cm. (24 7/8 x 29 3/4 in.)

Margaret Mellis (British, 1914-2009) Bottles signed with initials 'MM' (lower left); further signed, titled and dated 'Margaret Mellis/Bottles/1956' (verso) oil on canvas 63.2 x 75.7 cm. (24 7/8 x 29 3/4 in.) Footnotes: Provenance The Artist, thence by descent to the present owner Private Collection, U.K. Margaret Mellis was born in 1914 in China and returned to Scotland with her family shortly after. Her studies were undertaken firstly at Edinburgh College of Art (which she entered aged only 15) where she studied alongside Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and William Gear, taught by S J Peploe and W G Gillies, and later in Paris where she studied under André Lhote. She also studied for a time at the Euston Road School. Mellis met her first husband, the writer Adrian Stokes, in 1936 when visiting Paris for the Cézanne exhibition. They married in 1938, moving down to Little Parc Owles, at Carbis Bay in St Ives, shortly after. The couple were at the very forefront of the artistic shift from London to Cornwall and indeed some of their first visitors were none other than Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, who came to stay with them in August 1939, with their triplets, nursemaid and cook in tow. Mellis and Stokes had taken the house with the intention of being able to put up artistic friends who were looking to escape London with the onset of the Second World War, and indeed many other friends were to follow, including Naum Gabo and his wife Miriam (who became their next door neighbours), as well as Victor Pasmore, Graham Sutherland, William Coldstream, Julian Trevelyan and Peter Lanyon. Mellis' move to Cornwall coincided with a move into a new artistic medium, that of collage and relief, to which the free flow of artistic ideas among their many visitors contributed too. Following her divorce from Adrian Stokes, Mellis met Francis Davison in 1946 – who had been introduced to her by mutual friends Patrick and Delia Heron - and the two were to marry in 1948. Following a move to Cap d'Antibes they returned to England in 1950 and borrowed a fisherman's shack at Walberswick, in Suffolk. Together, Mellis and Davison lived a rich and industrious life of mutually supportive creativity, with each exploring different styles and creating significant bodies of work. They bought a cottage and four-acre smallholding at Syleham, near Diss in Norfolk, and lived there for the next 25 years, with a prolific garden where they also kept chickens. Their artistic hospitality continued, but with a smaller circle of close friends, which included Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Mary Potter and Mary Newcomb. In 1976 they moved to Southwold in Suffolk, and Mellis moved from painting to constructing reliefs out of driftwood which she found along the coast. The 1970s and 80s saw Mellis' work gaining greater commercial and critical acclaim. The 1960s and 70s had seen a move from vibrant still lifes to hard-edged abstraction and she created a series of works which she termed 'colour structures'. Capturing the attention of several London galleries, shows followed at Grabowski Gallery in 1969 and the Basil Jacobs Gallery in 1972. This led to acquisitions from both exhibitions by prominent public collections, with pieces entering both the Government Art Collection and the Arts Council collections. The 1980s and 90s saw even greater critical reception, with work included in the 1985 survey exhibition St Ives 1939-64 at the Tate in London, and two exhibitions in Scotland, Scottish Art since 1900 at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, and a retrospective of her work that was held at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh, in 1997, the latter subsequently touring the UK. Her work was also included in the inaugural exhibition when Tate St Ives opened in 1993. The selection of works offered here show an array of the artist's subjects and styles from throughout her career. With all the lots offered here having impeccable provenance, it is an exciting opportunity to acquire work by Mellis whose colourful and endlessly creative works reflect her rich and interesting life. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: AR AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing