MAINIE JELLET

Mary Harriet was born on 29 April 1897 in Dublin and she died on 16 February 1944 in Dublin.

Her father was a lawyer and her aunt was a pioneering woman doctor working in India.

She was an Irish painter. She received painting lessons at the young age of 11, and she was influenced by the Irish painters of the time. She later studied at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin.

Her decision to become a painter was made after working with Wlater Sickert at the Westminster Technical Institute in London, from 1917 to 1919 (impressionist style)

In 1921 she moved to Paris with her companion Evie Hone, where, working with André Lhote and Albert Gleizes she encountered cubism. After 1921 they returned to Dublin but for the next decade she continued to spend part of each year in Paris.

In 1923, she exhibited two cubist paintings at the Dublin Painters' Exhibition. The response was hostile.

Jellett was an important figure in Irish art history as an early proponent of abstract art. Her painting was often attacked critically but she proved eloquent in defense of her ideas.

Along with Evie Hone, Louis le Brocquy, Jack Hanlon and Norah McGuinness, Jellett co-founded the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1944.

Rosa Vilalta

English for Fun 4B