Frances Sally McLaren is a British painter, printmaker and etcher who was born in London in 1936. She lives and works in

East Knoyle East Knoyle is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Wiltshire, in the south-west of England, just west of the A350 road, A350 and about south of Warminster and north of Shaftesbury, Dorset. It was the birthplace of the arch ...

, Wiltshire.

Art education

McLaren studied at the

Ruskin School of Art The Ruskin School of Art, known as the Ruskin, is an art school at the University of Oxford, England. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division, University of Oxford, Humanities Division. History The Ruskin grew out the Oxford School of Art, ...

in Oxford from 1956 to 1959 where she won two prizes for painting. She then completed her postgraduate training at the

Central School of Art and Design The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...

in London from 1959 to 1961 under the tuition of Merlyn Evans and Tony Harrison where she gained a thorough grounding in etching techniques. McLaren won a French Government scholarship to study at

Atelier 17 Atelier 17 was an art school and studio that was influential in the teaching and promotion of printmaking in the 20th century. Originally located in Paris, the studio relocated to New York during the years surrounding World War II. It moved back ...

in Paris from 1961 to 1962 with

Stanley William Hayter Stanley William Hayter (27 December 1901 – 4 May 1988) was an English painter and printmaker associated in the 1930s with surrealism and from 1940 onward with abstract expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of ...

.''Who’s Who in Art,'' 'McLaren, Sally', 15th Edition. Havant, Hants: The Art Trade Press Ltd, 1970. pp. 358-359. SBN No. 900083026 She found Hayter's personality electrifying and this had a lasting influence on her work.

Career

McLaren was elected to associate membership (ARE) of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (now the

Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE), known until 1991 as the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, is a leading art institution based in London, England. The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, as it was originally styled, was ...

) in 1961 while she was still a student and subsequently became a Fellow of the

in 1973, which entitles McLaren to use the post-nominal letters RE after her name. McLaren was also an original member of the Printmakers Council of Great Britain, becoming a Fellow in 1971. Teaching: McLaren taught etching at

Goldsmiths College of Art Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

in London from 1962 to 1965.

Work

In 1971 the ''Arts Review'' critic commented that her earlier work was influenced by Hayter, and although she had absorbed his techniques she subsequently 'turned it to her own ends'. Largely abstract, McLaren's work has been described as a 'vision of a rural idyll rooted in the bold sweeps' of the countryside, which rarely dissolves into total abstraction, but treads a path between abstract and a realistic view of nature. Her work takes inspiration from the land, seascape and the elements, with her priority being to 'simplify'. She is influenced by the feeling of 'walking inside a painting', something she experiences when looking at

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latv ...

's work. Her colour palette echoes the landscape: Cinnabar Green and Raw

Umber Umber is a natural brown earth pigment that contains iron oxide and manganese oxide. In its natural form, it is called raw umber. When Calcination, calcined, the color becomes warmer and it becomes known as burnt umber. Its name derives from '' ...

reflects the Wiltshire countryside with

Ultramarine Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afgh ...

and

Cobalt blue Cobalt blue is a blue pigment made by sintering cobalt(II) oxide with aluminum(III) oxide (alumina) at 1200 °C. Chemically, cobalt blue pigment is cobalt(II) oxide-aluminium oxide, or cobalt(II) aluminate, CoAl2O4. Cobalt blue is lighter ...

representing flax fields. McLaren's etching observes the marks made on the land and on rock faces, with studio based drawings of graphite-stick and pencil often made from her subconscious. Her work in either oils or watercolour projects a pattern of surface colour and her considerable experience of printmaking, using texture to build shapes and colour, results in bold expressive work.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

* 1964 Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford * 1982 Hambledon Gallery, Blandford, Dorset * 2016

Bankside Gallery Bankside Gallery is a public art gallery in Bankside, London, England. Opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1980, Bankside is an educational charity, situated on the Thames Path just along from Tate Modern. The gallery is home to the Royal Watercolou ...

, London * 2017 At The Chapel, Bruton, Somerset

Group exhibitions

* 1962

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition The Summer Exhibition is an open art exhibition held annually by the Royal Academy in Burlington House, Piccadilly in central London, England, during the months of June, July, and August. The exhibition includes paintings, prints, drawings, sc ...

, London * 1962 & 1964

Women's International Art Club The Women's International Art Club, briefly known as the Paris International Art Club, was founded in Paris in 1900. The club was intended to "promote contacts between women artists of all nations and to arrange exhibitions of their work", and ...

, FBA Galleries, LondonRichmond, Una, (2016)
Women's International Art Club (WIAC)
Archives Hub. Accessed June 2019. *1964-1966 North-West Printmakers, Seattle, USA *1964

Group Show, Paris *1966 Ljubljana Print Biennale, Slovenia *1966

Edinburgh International Festival The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music (especially classical music) and the performing arts are i ...

, Scotland *1967

Associated American Artists Associated American Artists (AAA) was an art gallery in New York City that was established in 1934 and ceased operation in 2000. The gallery marketed art to the middle and upper-middle classes, first in the form of affordable prints and later in ...

Gallery, New York, USA *1971 Sydney Rothman Gallery, New Jersey, USA * 1978 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London *1982 Cork Street Fine Arts, London *1983 La Jeune Gravure Contemporaine, Paris * 1983 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London * 2003 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London *2017 Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China *2017

Royal West of England Academy The Royal West of England Academy (RWA) is Bristol's oldest art gallery, located in Clifton, Bristol, near the junction of Queens Road and Whiteladies Road. Situated in a Grade 2* listed building, it hosts five galleries and an exhibition program ...

, Bristol *2018 Messums Gallery and Arts Centre, Wiltshire *2022 Sladers Yard Gallery, Dorset, 22 January - 5 March 2022

Galleries and museums

McLaren's work is in the

Scarborough Art Gallery Scarborough Art Gallery is an art gallery in the English town of Scarborough. It is housed in a Grade II* Italianate villa in Scarborough’s Crescent, designed by Richard Hey Sharp (1793-1853). The gallery is administered by the Scarborough ...

and

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

Library & Galleries. Her work is also held in the following collections, galleries and museums: * The

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

* The

Scottish Arts Council The Scottish Arts Council ( gd, Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, sco, Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the ...

* The

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...

, Oxford * The

Government Art Collection The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in t ...

Greenwich Library Greenwich Library is the main library in the Greenwich library system of Greenwich, Connecticut, United States. The Greenwich Library system consists of the Main Library and its Byram Shubert and Cos Cob branches. History Originally established in ...

*The

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

Collection

References

External links

Sally McLaren

Art UK

Royal Academy, London. Summer Exhibition catalogues

The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, Sally McLaren
{{DEFAULTSORT:McLaren, Sally 1936 births Living people