Skip to main content

Mary Potter Art

British, 1900-1981

Mary Potter, OBE was an English painter whose best-known work uses a restrained palette of subtle colors. After studying at the Slade School of Fine Art, Potter began her career, exhibiting in London by the early 1920s. From the 1950s, her work became increasingly abstract and she gained wider notice. Born Mary Attenborough in Beckenham, she upset her parents by choosing painting from her many talents. While at Slade, she was awarded first prize for portrait painting and a place in the New English Art Club exhibition. She then decided that she was working to a formula and ceremonially burned all her portraits. Mary, later, married writer Stephen Potter and with two children, continued to paint as she wished. It was while living by the Thames in Chiswick from 1927 that she began to dabble with the watery vision which she would explore for the rest of her life. An early member of The London Group, Mary Potter also showed allegiance to the Seven and Five Society. In 1951, the Potter family moved to Aldeburgh, and it was this Suffolk fishing town that was to provide the inspiration for her finest art. After her divorce in 1955, her great friendship with the founders of the Aldeburgh Festival, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, led to them swapping houses for six years. This was so that she could paint overlooking the sea from Crag House. During her isolation, she painted to ever greater acclaim by paring down her vision, thinning her paint, blurring outlines and abolishing the horizon line.

7
7
5
2
1
2
2
1
1
Overall Height
to
Overall Width
to
1
1
1
1
7
7
7,734
4,945
2,504
1,371
6
6
1
Artist: Mary Potter
House Through Trees, Oil on Canvas Painting by Mary Potter, 1950s circa
By Mary Potter
Located in Kingsclere, GB
House Through Trees, Oil on Canvas Painting by Mary Potter, 1950s circa Additional information: Medium: Oil on canvas 30 x 41 cm 11 3/4 x 16 1/8 in Signed and titled on the canvas o...
Category

20th Century Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas

Golfers in the Rain I (The Fourteenth Hole), Oil on Canvas Painting, 1956 circa
By Mary Potter
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Golfers in the Rain I (The Fourteenth Hole), Oil on Canvas Painting, 1956 circa Additional information: Medium: Oil on canvas 50.8 x 63.5 cm 20 x 25 in A similar composition, Trees...
Category

20th Century Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas

A Rough Sea, Aldeburgh, Oil on Canvas Painting by Mary Potter, 1958 circa
By Mary Potter
Located in Kingsclere, GB
A Rough Sea, Aldeburgh, Oil on Canvas Painting by Mary Potter, 1958 circa Additional information: Medium: Oil on canvas 61 x 50.8 cm 24 x 20 in Signed verso This view is of the shi...
Category

20th Century Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas

Alms Houses, Oil on Canvas Painting by Mary Potter, 1966
By Mary Potter
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Alms Houses, Oil on Canvas Painting by Mary Potter, 1966 Additional information: Medium: Oil on canvas 33 x 66 cm 13 x 26 in Mary Potter was a painter of still lifes and landscapes...
Category

20th Century Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas

Pale Grey and Pink (White Sun), Oil on Canvas Painting by Mary Potter
By Mary Potter
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Pale Grey and Pink (White Sun), Oil on Canvas Painting by Mary Potter Additional information: Medium: Oil on canvas 40 x 29 7/8 in 101.5 x 76 cm Titled on stretcher Mary Potter was...
Category

20th Century Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas

Composition in Taupe, Oil on Board Painting by Mary Potter, 1979
By Mary Potter
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Composition in Taupe, Oil on Board Painting by Mary Potter, 1979 Additional information: Medium: Oil on board 122 x 152.5 cm 48 x 60 in Signed, titled and dated Mary Potter was a p...
Category

20th Century Mary Potter Art

Materials

Board

Reflections II (Light Through Leaves), Oil on Canvas Painting, 1965-69 circa
By Mary Potter
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Reflections II (Light Through Leaves), Oil on Canvas Painting, 1965-69 circa Additional information: Medium: Oil on canvas 16 1/8 x 20 in 41 x 51 cm Living in the grounds of the Re...
Category

20th Century Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas

Related Items
Expressions in Bloom: Portraits from the 20th Century IV - Florentine School
Located in London, GB
'Expressions in Bloom: Portraits from the 20th Century IV', oil on canvas mounted on board, Florentine School (circa 1980s-90s). This gallery has acquired a number of paintings throu...
Category

1980s Modern Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Board

Echoes of the Avant-Garde: Mid-Century Visions III (circa 1970s)
Located in London, GB
'Echoes of the Avant-Garde: Mid-Century Visions III', oil on board (circa 1970s). Step into a world where the spirit of early 20th-century modernism meets the bold experimentation o...
Category

1970s Abstract Mary Potter Art

Materials

Oil, Board

'Near Locranan, Brittany', Paris, Charlottenborg, Bornholm School, Benezit
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Mogens Hertz' (Danish, 1909-1999) and painted circa 1935. This notable Impressionist first studied with the classically-trained Academician, Laurits Ring and, su...
Category

1930s Impressionist Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Plywood

"Prickly Pete" Contemporary Abstract Colorful Western Cowboy Portrait Painting
Located in Houston, TX
Colorful abstract cowboy portrait painting by contemporary artist Ian Francis. The work features a western inspired figure with a shadowed face dressed...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

William F Burchell, Original oil painting of chickens in a farmyard
Located in Harkstead, GB
An idyllic scene of chickens feeding in a famryard with old outbuildings and a patch of blue sky beyond. William f Burchell (exhibiting 1909-1937) A farmyard scene Signed Oil on can...
Category

Late 19th Century Victorian Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Abstract in Coral and Jade', Painters Eleven, Ontario, Canadian Modernist Oil
By Hortense Mattice Gordon
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Hortense M. Gordon' for Hortense Crompton Mattice Gordon (Canadian, 1886-1961) and dated 1949. Previously with: Dominion Gallery of Montreal (stamp, verso). Photo courtesy of Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Hamilton artist Hortense Crompton Mattice Gordon was one of Canada’s earliest non-representational painters, embracing abstraction in the 1930s. She was also an active member of Canada's first English-speaking abstract group, Painters Eleven. A scholarship recipient, Hortense Mattice first attended the Hamilton Art School and, subsequently, moved to Chatham, Ontario. Initially focusing on porcelain painting, Mattice quickly began building a portfolio of oils and, from 1908, was exhibiting both her porcelain and landscapes at what is now the Chatham Cultural Centre (1908) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (1909). During this time, Mattice frequently traveled to the United States and, in 1915, visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where she would have seen early works by important modernists including Picasso and Matisse. She started her teaching career in Chatham but, having received a job offer from the artist John Sloan Gordon, returned to Hamilton to teach at the Hamilton Art School in 1918. The two artists married in 1920. In 1922, Gordon and her husband took a study trip to France and, inspired by the fervent of Modernist ideas in Paris, expanded her own approaches to art, developing an increasingly soft, loose paint handling style. It was not until the 1930’s, after a few more trips to France and her discovery of Piet Mondrian’s work, that elements of abstraction began to appear in Gordon’s work. After the death of her husband in 1940, Gordon attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art and studied with Hans Hoffmann (1941-1945) whose influence and friendship pushed her to explore non-objective painting. After her training with Hofmann and in Cranbrook, Gordon began to exhibit regularly and with success in both Canada and the United States including at the Riverside Museum (New York, 1947), Creative Gallery (New York, 1952), in Ann Arbor (Michigan, 1952), Phillips Gallery (Detroit, 1952), the Flint Institute of Arts (Michigan, 1952), Mount Allison University (New Brunswick, 1952), the Galerie Agnes Lefort in Montréal and Art Gallery of Hamilton (retrospective, 1960). She was a member of the Contemporary Artists of Hamilton (honorary president in 1948), the Ontario Society of Artists, the Hamilton Women...
Category

1940s Abstract Mary Potter Art

Materials

Oil, Board

'Spring Landscape', Paris, Danish Post-Impressionist oil, Charlottenborg Palace
By Ejnar Kragh
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
A substantial, sunlit landscape showing a fruit-tree in blossom in the foreground with verdant fields receding towards rolling hills beneath turquoise and lavender clouds. Signed ...
Category

1940s Expressionist Mary Potter Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

'Woman Walking Beside the Seine', Pont Neuf, Paris, French Post-Impressionist
By Ejnar Kragh
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Ejnar Kragh' (Danish, 1903-1981) and dated 1950. A substantial, mid-century Impressionist oil showing a view of Paris with a figure strolling beside the Seine. ...
Category

1950s Post-Impressionist Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Blue Abstract Painting Mid 20th Century Oil on Board
Located in Arp, TX
Wanda Northen "Blue Abstract" c. 1960s Oil paint on board 20.25"x24.25" silver period frame Signed in paint lower right artists label on reverse
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Mary Potter Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Miniature Abstract Canvas Art with Muted Greens & Blues by Contemporary Artist
By Angela Wakefield
Located in Preston, GB
Miniature Abstract Canvas Art with Muted Greens & Blues by Contemporary British Artist, Angela Wakefield Art measures 7 x 5 inches Frame measures ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas, Paint, Cotton Canvas, Acrylic, Board

'Woodland Landscape', Paris, NAD, Exhibited: Metropolitan Museum, New York
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, 'H. Dearth' for Henry Golden Dearth (American, 1864-1918) and dated 1892. Provenance: Collection of George A. Hearn. Exhibite...
Category

1890s American Impressionist Mary Potter Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"My Abbey Road Heart" Pop Art Resin Oil Painting & Resin on White Floater Frame
By Cindy Shaoul
Located in New York, NY
Motivated by bold color and fast brushwork, we are moved by the simplicity and thick textured oil paints in these works. Shaoul’s “My Heart Collection” is a vibrant and energetic dis...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mary Potter Art

Materials

Resin, Oil, Board, Mixed Media

Mary Potter art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Mary Potter art available for sale on 1stDibs. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Christopher R. W. Nevinson, John French, and Graham Dean.

Artists Similar to Mary Potter

Recently Viewed

View All