Paule Vézelay

Paule Vézelay (1892 – 1984)

Was born Marjorie Watson-Williams in Bristol. She first gained recognition as a figurative painter, had her first London show in 1921 and was invited to join the London Group in 1922. She moved to France in 1926 and changed her name to Paule Vézelay possibly to identify herself with the School of Paris. In 1928 she abandoned figurative painting and made her first abstract work (which is now lost) and from then on worked exclusively in an abstract mode. She became well know in modernist Parisian art circles and was elected to membership of the French abstract movement, Abstraction-Création, which was largely established as a reaction to Surrealism. In many of her works, Vézelay’s form of abstraction was outside the main concepts of Constructivism e.g. floating shapes. She had a life-long obsession for creating “something pleasing and happy” – not terms generally associated with Constructivism. “However, her view that ‘pure’ abstract art enhanced the environment, and her promotion with Groupe Espace in the 1950s of a synthesis or close collaboration between architects and abstract painters and sculptors, place her at least in part within the Constructivist tradition.”

References

* Alan Fowler. "Constructivist Art in Britain 1913 - 2005". University of Southampton. 2006. PhD Thesis.