Celia Sevitt was born into a Jewish family in Dublin, Ireland on 21 October 1921. She most likely immigrated to London, England in the 1930s where she also received her art education. Despite challenges in her personal and professional life, Sevitt regularly created and exhibited abstract and figurative works, both as a as a painter and printmaker, while remaining a committed socialist.
Artist Celia Sevitt was born into a Jewish family on 21 October 1921 in Dublin, Ireland. Her parents (originally named Zhevitovsky) came from Ukrainian shtetls. In search of work, her mother, Elizabeth, emigrated from the Vinnytsia Oblast, part of the Podolia Governorate, a region of the Russian Empire, now in Ukraine. Her father, Abram, fled conscription and travelled across Europe to Liverpool, where he met and married Elizabeth. Although they originally planned to immigrate to New York, USA, they settled in Dublin and had seven children.
Sevitt married young, to Jim Prendergast, a Communist from a Catholic family, who established the Connolly Association which supported Irish immigrants in the UK. The couple were atheists and committed to radical, even militant, leftwing politics, particularly when they lived in Belfast. They separated after only a few years, with Jim remarrying in 1958 and, while Sevitt took his last name on marriage, she retained her maiden name when exhibiting. Her son, Christopher Prendergast, recalled his childhood, alternating between synagogue on Saturdays with his maternal grandparents and Catholic Mass on Sundays with his paternal grandparents, despite being raised in an atheist household, where, notwithstanding Sevitt’s rejection of religion, she insisted on circumcision, with the father only finally agreeing when they found a Communist Rabbi, (London Review of Books, 2005).
It is unclear when Sevitt immigrated to London, but it was most likely around the late 1930s. She first studied at Hornsey College of Art from 1959 and later enrolled at the Central School of Art (now part of UAL), where she trained variously in painting, drawing, stained glass, screen printing, etching, and aquatint. In 1967, she travelled to Israel for six months, spending most of her time in the desert. The journey deeply influenced her art practice, fostering introspection and adding a sense of depth to her inner life.
Sevitt was primarily a painter and etcher, retaining her maiden name through her professional life. Her oeuvre includes many abstract works, in the tradition of Abstract Expressionism, with a focus on harmonious rhythm and the effects that light has on composition, though she also worked figuratively. Although very little is known about Sevitt professionally, she had several significant exhibitions throughout her career, including in Leningrad, USSR, demonstrating her commitment to radical socialism. One of her early exhibits was at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1966. She also exhibited in Tel Aviv in Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. In 1969, she held a two-person exhibition with Australian-born, émigré artist Leonard Matkevich, organised by the Canaletto Gallery in London and mounted on a barge on the canal in Little Venice. Sevitt also had several exhibitions with the Ben Uri Gallery. In 1980 her work featured in a two person show with the Manchester-born painter, Samson Flax, while from the early 1970s, she regularly participated in Ben Uri's annual Open Exhibitions. In 1972, for example, her pieces Chalk Cave, Sodom, Israel, Untitled, and Impressions from a Window were displayed, followed by two unframed pieces in the 1980 iteration. In 1983 she exhibited eight works—etchings, aquatints, oils, and oil pastels—at the Annual Open Exhibition. Several of her works also featured in the annual fundraising Picture Fair in 1978 and 1980.
In 1976, she had a solo exhibition at Conway Hall in Holborn (home to the Ethical Society) when her work was reviewed in the press: ‘A psychiatrist might see in Celia Sevitt’s paintings, with their angle of line and colour, the winding steppes of hilly towns, some reflection of the fact that she came to her art through a time of trouble. She records herself that her art emerged as a result of a period of crisis in her life which included an eviction, an institution for the homeless, a half-way house, and bringing up four children single-handed, adding to the struggle and challenge of becoming a professional artist,’ (Marylebone Mercury, 1976, p. 4). The same source described her as now being vivacious and cheerful. In 1981, she had a two-person show with Jim Maloney in Wexford, Ireland. On this occasion, she was described as working ‘in a demanding medium’ and being ‘celebrated world-wide as an innovator, pioneer and happy survivor’, with the exhibition showing her ‘great versatility – from her early black and while urban townscapes to the recent vividly coloured and deeply spiritual abstract creations’ (Pat O’Leary, 1981, p. 4). This exhibition also included her paintings of stained glass church windows. She also held an exhibition in Leningrad in the USSR, and showed in France, Germany and Turkey, but specific details about the last three shows are thus far lacking. Alongside her art practice, she had a brief stint in acting at the Unity Theatre in Euston, which produced plays aimed at working class audiences, where she played Ethel Rosenberg, an American who was convicted of spying for the USSR, in one of their productions.
Celia Sevitt was killed in a road accident in Bristol, England on 27 August 1983. Posthumously, her work featured in Bridget Riley and Abstraction by Women Artists, held at the Graves Gallery, Sheffield. In the 1960s, some of her works were acquired by the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In the UK public domain, her works are held in the Arts Council Collection and by Southwark Council. A letter to her from a fighter in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War is held by the Marx Memorial Library, while Ben Uri archives include exhibition correspondence. Despite her exhibition history, very little is known about Sevitt, and the Ben Uri Research Unit welcomes contributions from researchers or family members who might know more.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Celia Sevitt]
Publications related to [Celia Sevitt] in the Ben Uri Library