Marlow Moss
up - bottom - news
Marlowe Moss is, perhaps, the most underestimated modern British artist. Most (myself included, at first) would probably struggle to correctly identify her gender, much less her oeuvre. She was largely ignored in herlifetime, when the likes of Nicholson and Hepworth were lauded, and is forgotten in the tawdry age of Hirst and Emin.
My interest derives from my devotion to the works of Mondrian:
- My first encounter in 2002 was in a paper by Robert Welsh, when I started this page.
- I found Florette Djikstra's book on her efforts to reconstruct Moss's lost works.
- And while I was waiting for that to arrive from Amazon, found a catalogue from a 1962 exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, written by A. H. Nijhoff, from which the photograph is taken (thanks Frans Melk, dead link). The catalogue is almost entirely in Dutch, but provided the illustrations above and below and a brief history.
1890 |
Born in Richmond, Surrey |
1928 |
First exhibited in Paris |
1930-40 |
Member of the following groups
Les Surindépendants, Abstraction Création, Group 1940, Anglo American |
1937 |
Participated in an exhibition at Kunsthalle, Basle |
1938 |
Participated in an exhibition at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam |
1940 |
Returned to England
Entire output of her work destroyed by enemy action in France
Studied architecture, which led to constructive sculpture based on geometrical principles |
1947 |
Member of the group Réalités Nouvelles, Paris. |
1953 |
First private show at the Hanover Gallery, London |
1955 |
Participated in an exhibition at Galerie Creuze, Paris, Cinquante Ans de Peinture Abstraite |
195? |
Second private show at the Hanover Gallery, London |
1958 |
Died in Penzance, Cornwall |
- My knowledge at the time was restricted to the notion that (to quote from the previous version of this page), "Moss had some correspondence with (and seemingly some influence over) Mondrian on the subject of the use of double lines in compositions. See here for more details."
- The next spurt of interest was in October 2010. In updating The Pictures pages, I learned that, in addition to her own work, two Mondrians were lost in WW2 which Ms Moss had borrowed from Wim and Tonia Stieltjes. Further details and eventual reconstruction here.
- Then in January 2012 I saw the Rome Mondrian exhibition which included three Moss's from the Haags Gemeentemuseum, my first encounter with the real thing.
- Back home, I decided that this page must be due for a rewrite and in a web search for new material found,
- a 2008 PhD thesis on Moss by Lucy Harriet Amy Howarth which is available from the British Library EThOS service. This contains (probably) all that is known about Moss, including a Catalogue Raisonné. It even contains a reference to Snap Dragon: first in a list of obscure web-site references to Moss and praised as "amongst the oddest". I am trying to contact the author for permission to quote the thesis.
Here are some images from the exhibition catalogue.
2 wit, zwart, rood en grijs, 1932
olie/doek 54x44.5 cm
Welsh calls it Composition in White, Black, Red and Grey.
|
|
4 wit, zwart en grijs, 1934
olie/doek 54x54 cm
|
|
11 wit, 1940
relief in hout 48x48 cm
|
|
19 wit en zwart, 1949
olie/doek 53x53 cm
|
|
23 wit, zwart en blauw, 1950
olie/doek 46x46 cm
|
|
33 wit, zwart en rood, 53
olie/doek 76x61 cm
|
|
43 wit, zwart, gell en blauw, 1957
olie/doek 76x76 cm
|
|
54 houten model voor constructie in aluminium, 1956
|
|
[Below are the last entries from the original 2002 page.]
I think the catalogue tries to list every known piece by Moss (46 paintings and 13 constructions). They are not all pictured therein.
Thanks to Mr Nijhoff. More details when available.
(Dec 2002) I notice that Mondrian scholar, Prof. Yve-Alain Bois is dismissive of MM's influence on PM,
There is a myth, circulated in part by Vantongerloo's correspondence with Gorin, to the effect that Mondrian borrowed the double line from a young English painter, Marlow Moss, who saw herself as a neo-plasticist. A few months before Mondrian adopted this new element in his art, she did in fact paint (an may have exhibited) double-line pictures; but one need only glance at Moss' earlier "double-line" pictures to realize that she makes very different use of this element: her couples lines are so unequal in thickness that they can be read neither as forming a single linear entity, nor as belonging to the same plane. See, for example, the two "double-line" compositions by Moss, dated 1931, and reproduced in the first issue of Abstraction-Création, dated 1932 (p. 26). It is only in the second issue of this journal (dated 1933) that one can see a "double-line" by Moss that has something in common with those of Mondrian (p. 29); the same issue carries a reproduction of Mondrian's first "double-line" canvas (p. 31). In other words, Mondrian does not first criticize, then adopt, Moss' invention, as Vantongerloo suggests: he is at first a skeptic, then understands his lack of interest in Moss' version, then demonstrates how, and for what destructive end, the double line could be used in neo-plastic art.
Yve-Alain Bois in note 156 to an essay, The Iconoclast, in Piet Mondrian 1872-1944, Bullfinch Press, p. 371
Ms Moss should not feel too hurt or isolated by this treatment, Prof. Bois is dismissive of numerous people and publications in this essay. Nevertheless, I am still looking forward to getting a copy of his Painting as Model for Christmas. [I never did get the book.]
top -
old -
Home page