Margaret Geddes (1914-1998)

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MARGARET GEDDES

Born in Surrey, Margaret Geddes studied at the Westminster School of Art between 1932-7 where her teachers included Walter Bayes, Mark Gertler and Bernard Meninsky. She went on to exhibit her paintings at the Royal Academy, New English Art Club and the Redfern Gallery. 

Her first solo exhibition was staged in 1950 and she went on to have two major shows at the Drian Galleries in the 1960s. Geddes's work developed from figuration to abstraction and she showed herself to be an adventurous, inquiring artist, well aware of developments on the continent and the Abstract Expressionists in America. 

For many years she was President of the Womens' International Art Club and she remained committed to promoting the work of avant garde women artists. Geddes visited New York several times during the early 1960s and was much influenced by the work of James Brooks, Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko. A major retrospective of her life and work was staged at the Woodlands Art Gallery in Greenwich in 1998.