Born: 1935 The Hague, Netherlands
Year of Migration to the UK: 19
Biography
Painter Mary Pym was born in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1935. The year and circumstances of her immigration to England are unknown. After immigrating to England, she studied at Winchester College of Art in Hampshire from 1954 to 1958, receiving her initial formal training as a painter. Her studies at both Winchester College of Art and Southampton College of Art, where she later pursued postgraduate work, reflect a sustained connection to Hampshire, a county whose agricultural and coastal landscapes would become the primary subject of her practice. More than a decade after completing her undergraduate studies, she returned to higher education, taking a four-year Postgraduate Experimental Painting course at Southampton College of Art, graduating in 1978; she also taught at Southampton College of Art during this period (Wykeham Gallery blog). In 1985 she became a part-time art teacher, a role she maintained alongside her continuing practice as an exhibiting artist (Wykeham Gallery). Pym has lived most of her life in England, principally in Hampshire, with periods of residence also in Devon, Ireland, and Scotland.
Pym works in oils on board, and her practice is centred on landscape. Her compositions occupy a position between figuration and abstraction: the fields, hedgerows, and open terrain of the English and Irish countryside are translated into broad, geometrically arranged planes of colour, with the irregular boundaries of the land giving the paintings a near-planar, grid-like structure. As Gerald Dodson, proprietor of the Wykeham Gallery, has observed, 'the slightly irregular blocking of fields takes on a cubist quality' (Wykeham Gallery blog), while the retention of horizon and perspective within these flattened compositions simultaneously conveys considerable spatial depth. Colour is central to her method: vibrant yet carefully modulated, it is deployed in geometric relationships across the picture surface, capturing the tones of farmland, flax, and sky under strong natural light. The Wykeham Gallery has described the work as falling between the representative and the abstract, with an individual and easily recognisable style in which colours arranged geometrically create landscapes of notable economy and openness (Wykeham Gallery). Marine House at Beer has characterised her approach as binding nature to its man-made additions through abstract design, texture, and colour, achieving what it describes as a quality of 'timelessness and space' (Marine House at Beer). Her sustained focus on the landscape of her adopted country reflects the perspective of a Dutch-born artist who, having immigrated to England, made the British and Irish countryside the central concern of her practice.
Pym held her first solo exhibition in Southampton in 1965. Over the following decades she developed an extensive record of group and paired exhibitions across London and Hampshire. In 1996 Pym participated in a group summer exhibition at the Old Bakehouse gallery in Fishbourne, West Sussex (Portsmouth Evening News, 1996), and the following year showed in an exhibition of paintings alongside Liz Luffingham, Anne Chadwick and Peter Iden in August 1997 (Midhurst and Petworth Observer, 1997). She participated in an eight-person group exhibition at Llewellyn Alexander Gallery, London, in November 1998. She subsequently showed at the same gallery in paired exhibitions alongside John Bond in October 2007, with Oliver Canti in February 2009, and again with Oliver Canti in September 2010. In 2005 she was included in a group exhibition with Simon Gudgeon and Norman Smith at the Wykeham Gallery, Stockbridge, Hampshire. In September 2017 the Wykeham Gallery hosted her first solo exhibition there, described as the largest body of her work ever brought together in one gallery; the show attracted significant collector interest, with a substantial number of works sold before the opening.
Pym currently lives and works in England. Her works are not known to be held in any public collections in the UK.
Michal Mel
Related books
- Oliver Canti and Mary Pym, Oliver Canti and Mary Pym: 21 September to 12 October 2010 (London: Llewellyn Alexander, 2010)
- Oliver Canti and Mary Pym, Oliver Canti and Mary Pym: 16 February to 3 March 2009 (London: Llewellyn Alexander, 2009)
- John Bond and Mary Pym, John Bond and Mary Pym: 1-20 October 2007 (London: Llewellyn Alexander, 2007)
- Simon Gudgeon, Mary Pym and Norman Smith, Simon Gudgeon, Mary Pym and Norman Smith: The Wykeham Gallery (Stockbridge: Wykeham Gallery, 2005)
- 8 Man Exhibition: 19 November to 5 December 1998, Llewellyn Alexander (London: Llewellyn Alexander, 1998)
- 'The Old Bakehouse: Exhibition of Paintings', Midhurst and Petworth Observer, 7 August 1997
- 'Summer show features artwork', Portsmouth Evening News, 16 July 1996
Related organisations
- Southampton College of Art (student)
- Southampton College of Art (teacher)
- Winchester College of Art (student)
Related web links
Selected exhibitions
- Solo exhibition, Wykeham Gallery, Stockbridge, Hampshire (2017)
- Oliver Canti and Mary Pym, Llewellyn Alexander Gallery, London (2009; 2010)
- John Bond and Mary Pym, Llewellyn Alexander Gallery, London (2007)
- Simon Gudgeon, Mary Pym and Norman Smith, Wykeham Gallery, Stockbridge, Hampshire (2005)
- 8 Man Exhibition, Llewellyn Alexander Gallery, London (1998)
- Group exhibition, The Old Bakehouse, Fishbourne (1996; 1997)
- Solo exhibition, Southampton (1965)
