Mary Adshead
| Mary Adshead | |
|---|---|
Self-portrait (1931)
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| Born |
15 February 1904 Bloomsbury, London |
| Died | 3 September 1995 (aged 91) London |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Slade School of Art |
| Known for | Painting, murals |
| Spouse(s) | Stephen Bone |
Mary Adshead (15 February 1904 - 3 September 1995) was an English painter, muralist, illustrator and designer.
Adshead was born in Bloomsbury, London, the only child of Stanley Davenport Adshead, architect, watercolourist, and Professor of Civic Design first at Liverpool, and later at London University, and his wife Mary. Mary Adshead attended Putney High School from 1916 to 1919 and then spent six months in Paris. Due to her fathers' position within London University she was able to enroll at the Slade School of Art in 1921, aged just sixteen. There Henry Tonks recognised her ability and arranged her first mural commission, for a boys' club in Wapping, working with Rex Whistler. This success led to further commissions. Her next mural, carried out in 1924, was on a desert island theme for the professor of architecture at Liverpool University, Charles Reilly. This mural still exists and is on display at Liverpool University Art Gallery. A large mural by Adshead, The Housing of the People, was shown at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley.
Another commission was for Lord Beaverbrook's Newmarket house. Her mandate was to decorate his dining-room with Newmarket racing scenes and portraits of his friends, such as Arnold Bennett, Lady Louis Mountbatten, and Winston Churchill, on their way to the racecourse. The project was never completed as Beaverbrook became concerned that he would be daily faced with the portraits if he ever fell out with any of them. Beaverbrook paid Adshead a two-thirds rejection fee and returned the completed panels which were exhibited in a London department store in 1930. Later all but three of the panels were destroyed by fire whilst in storage. Adshead also painted a mural for the British Pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition of 1937.
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