Elsie Evelyn Few, (4 February 1909 – 17 December 1980) was a Jamaican-born artist, who had a long career in Britain and was associated with the

Euston Road School The Euston Road School is a term applied to a group of English painters, active either as staff or students at the School of Drawing and Painting in London between 1937 and 1939. The School opened in October 1937 at premises in Fitzroy Street bef ...

. Throughout her career Few produced oil paintings of landscapes but later in her life began using collage techniques to create abstract designs.

Biography

Few was born in

Kingston, Jamaica Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley Inter ...

. She moved to London to study at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

and the

Bartlett School of Architecture Bartlett may refer to: Places * Bartlett Bay, Canada, Arctic waterway * Wharerata, New Zealand, also known as Bartletts United States * Bartlett, Illinois ** Bartlett station, a commuter railroad station * Bartlett, Iowa * Bartlett, Kansas ...

from 1929 and 1931, before travelling and studying throughout Europe. Few met and worked with artists from the Euston Road School. In 1937 she married Claude Rogers, one of the founding members of the School and together they, along with

Victor Pasmore Edwin John Victor Pasmore, CH, CBE (3 December 190823 January 1998) was a British artist. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. Early life Pasmore was born in Chelsham, Surrey, on 3 December 1908. He s ...

held a joint exhibition at the Burnett Webster Gallery in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1936. Shortly afterwards, Few had her first solo exhibition at the same gallery. Few was elected a member of the

London Group The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...

in 1943 and from 1945 until 1948 worked for

Chatto & Windus Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business ...

as an art editor. In 1948, works by Few were included in the ''Euston Road School and others'' exhibition held at the Wakefield City Art Gallery, but not in the subsequent touring version of the exhibition created by the Arts Council. From 1946 until 1969 she headed the art department at the Gipsy Hill College. Few had a number of notable exhibitions during her career, including at the

Whitechapel Art Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...

in 1973 and at the Annexe Gallery in

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

during 1979.

Legacy

A memorial exhibition for Few was held in 1981 at the

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...

Art Gallery, which included examples of her ceramics and tapestries alongside her paintings and collages. The Belgrave Gallery held a joint exhibition of works by Rogers and Few in 2002. For many years the couple had lived at

Somerton Somerton may refer to: Places Australia *Somerton, New South Wales *Somerton Park, South Australia, a seaside Adelaide suburb **Somerton Man, unsolved case of an unidentified man found dead in 1948 on the Somerton Park beach *Somerton, Victoria Un ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Few, Elsie 1909 births 1980 deaths 20th-century women artists Academics of Kingston University Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art British artists Jamaican women artists People from Kingston, Jamaica Jamaican artists Migrants from British Jamaica to the United Kingdom