In the pantheon of 20th century British abstract artists, names like Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore loom large. But a pioneering female artist who helped pave the way for their breakthroughs has long been overshadowed – until now. Paule Vézelay, a boundary-pushing abstract artist born Marjorie Watson-Williams in Bristol in 1892, is finally receiving her due with a major retrospective exhibition in her hometown, the first in over 40 years.
Rediscovering a Visionary
The exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy, entitled “Paule Vézelay: Living Lines”, brings together 60 works spanning Vézelay’s prolific six-decade career. Through paintings, drawings, textiles and sculptures, the show traces the artist’s evolution from her early experiments with abstraction in 1920s Paris to her later years back in England, revealing a restless innovator constantly seeking new forms of expression.
Ahead of Her Time
Vézelay’s journey into abstraction began after moving to Paris in 1926, where she immersed herself in the vibrant avant-garde scene. Renamed Paule Vézelay, she befriended leading artists like Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp. It was in this heady creative milieu that Vézelay started moving away from figurative art into pure abstraction.
Her 1928 work “Construction. Grey Lines on Pink Ground”, featured in the retrospective, is considered one of the earliest abstract paintings by a British artist, predating the abstract sculptures of Hepworth and Moore by several years. With its geometric composition and bold color blocking, the piece is a testament to Vézelay’s trailblazing vision.
She was dextrous and constantly reinvented herself. She stands alongside Moore and Hepworth in Britain.
– Simon Grant, curator of “Paule Vézelay: Living Lines”
Setbacks and Reinventions
Yet just as her star was rising, the outbreak of World War II disrupted Vézelay’s ascent. She was forced to flee Paris and resettle in her native Bristol. Though she continued to paint, capturing the devastation of the Blitz in abstract form, Vézelay struggled to gain a foothold in the British art world after years abroad.
Faced with the dual obstacles of wartime upheaval and rampant art world sexism, Vézelay pivoted to textile design and illustration to make ends meet, while still secretly pursuing her abstract experimentation. As curator Simon Grant notes, “She really did it on her own, she had no assistance. She was a force of nature.”
A Timely Reappraisal
Vézelay’s later years saw glimmers of recognition, including a 1983 Tate retrospective and a BBC documentary that hailed her as one of the “women of our century.” But her renown never reached the heights of her abstract art successors. For Grant, Vézelay’s relative obscurity stems from a perfect storm of “bad timing”, wartime dislocation, and the era’s dismissive attitudes toward women artists.
Now, over three decades after her death, Vézelay is finally commanding the spotlight she long deserved. More than a celebration of her individual achievements, the Bristol retrospective represents a larger effort to reassess art history with a more inclusively critical eye – one that gives pioneering women artists their rightful place in the narrative.
Of course, you have to be twice as good as the men to get recognition.
– Paule Vézelay, 1983
With interest in Vézelay’s legacy surging, “Living Lines” promises not only to introduce a new generation to her arresting body of work, but to spark a broader conversation about the unsung heroines of 20th century art. It’s a conversation long overdue, and one that Paule Vézelay – a woman truly ahead of her time – is uniquely poised to lead.
“Paule Vézelay: Living Lines” is on view at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol from 25 January until 27 April 2025.
