‘She kept pushing the boundaries’: Paule Vézelay, the British abstract pioneer who found fame in interwar Paris
A new exhibition celebrates the life and work of the maverick British artist beloved by Miro, Hemingway and Mondrian, who had to flee to Paris to realise her true artistic vision
Whichever art historian first had the chance to leaf through Paule Vézelay’s personal archive after her passing in 1984 must have audibly squealed. The archive revealed that Vézelay, the British abstract painter who changed her name from Marjorie Watson-Williams shortly after moving to Paris in 1926, was on “chère amie” terms with Joan Miró, Alexander Calder and the Kandinskys. Ernest Hemingway addresses her as “Dear Madame Vézelay”, Alberto Giacometti simply as “Paule”. Henri Matisse regretfully declines her invitation to take part in a group show in London. An altogether brighter László Moholy-Nagy writes that he’s been to see her work: “I congratulate you,” he beams. “I visited your exhibition. I was delighted.”
Now the exuberant personality and the prodigiously creative output that cemented Vézelay as a 20th-century force to be reckoned with are being showcased at a new exhibition, Paule Vézelay: Living Lines, currently on view at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in Bristol.
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