MARY FEDDEN. FARNDALE WINDOW. SOLD

Size: 24″ x 20″

Signed and dated: Fedden 1994

Framing: Recently reframed in a fine cream and guilded frame

Provenance: John Iddon Fine Art, Richmond

Literature: Illustrated in Mel Gooding’s “Mary Fedden“, (Scholar Press, Aldershot, 1995) on page 83

Illustrated in José Manser’s”Mary Fedden and Julian Trevelyan: Life and Art by the River Thames” (Unicorn Press, London, 2012) on page 171

MARY FEDDEN. FARNDALE WINDOW.

MARY FEDDEN. FARNDALE WINDOW. SOLD

Mary Fedden’s work is often characterised by an apparently random selection of separate still-life objects placed before a window, with a view of a rural landscape beyond. In the case of Farndale Window the bucolic English rural view is of Farndale, in the North Yorkshire Moors, where Mary Fedden’s stepson, Philip Trevelyan, has a farm. Philip was Julian Trevelyan’s son from his first marriage before he married Mary in the 1950s.

Mary Fedden cared little for the rules of perspective, or the precise depiction of objects in any photographic sense. Instead she seems to take delight in a more quirky, simplistic interpretation of her favourite subjects. This painting is a great example: if you look at the two playing cards in the centre of the painting, one is the ace of diamonds. This, of course, should be painted in red, but that didn’t suit Mary’s colour pallette for the painting so she simply ignored convention and painted it black! She had a good sense of humour so probably thought this was a great joke – after all, she could so easily have painted the ace of clubs instead, which would have been black all along!

The recurring objects she paints in her pictures are themselves chosen by Mary Fedden from the extensive collection of everday ornaments or props at her home, Durham Wharf, for their intrinsic decorative appeal. In this case she has selected a simple white milk jug, a patterned hand-crafted mug, a pair of beautifully depicted apples and a yellow bowl of fruit, grapes maybe? They all work beautifully within the carefully curated compositon and blend perfectly with the rural view seen through the window. As is so often the case in Mary Fedden’s paintings, the scene is partially framed by a sympathetically coloured, billowing curtain to the left hand side of the window.

All in all, it is a bit of a masterpiece and draws lots of lovely comments from people who know, or have close links with, Farndale and the North Yorkshire Moors.

MARY FEDDEN. FARNDALE WINDOW. This painting is now sold.