Marlow Moss
| Marjorie Jewel "Marlow" Moss | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Marjorie Jewel Moss 29 May 1889 Kilburn, London |
| Died | 23 August 1958 (aged 69) Penzance, Cornwall |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Painting |
Marjorie Jewel "Marlow" Moss (29 May 1889 – 23 August 1958) was a British Constructivist artist who worked in painting and sculpture.
Born in Kilburn, she was the daughter of Lionel Moss, a master hosier and clothier, and his wife Frannie Jacobs.
In her childhood music was her one great interest, but her music studies were interrupted for years when she contracted tuberculosis. Later she turned her attention to ballet. Against the wishes of her family, she chose to pursue an artistic career, studying at the St John's Wood School of Art in 1916–17, then the Slade School of Fine Art. She changed her forename (from Marjorie) and adopted a masculine appearance in around 1919. This was precipitated by a ‘shock of an emotional nature’ and the abandonment of her studies at the Slade, to live alone in Cornwall.
In 1923, inspired by a biography of Marie Curie, she was able to return to London to study in the British Museum Reading Room, then studied sculpture at the Penzance School of Art, before taking up painting and setting up a London studio in 1926. At this point in her life she permanently adopted a masculine appearance of short hair, cravat and jodhpurs, and changed her forename to Marlow.
In 1927 she visited, and later moved to, Paris where she met her lifelong partner, the Dutch writer Antoinette Hendrika Nijhoff-Wind, the wife of the poet Martinus Nijhoff). Nijhoff described Moss as an atheist. She was a pupil of Léger and Ozenfant at the Académie Moderne, but her style was particularly influenced by Piet Mondrian. She was also acquainted with Georges Vantongerloo and Jean Gorin. In Paris she was a founder member of the Abstraction-Création association, and exhibited with the Salon des Surindépendants.
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