Paule vezelay biography of barack

“I am the first English abstract artist (not the first female artist) to have made an international reputation,” wrote Paule Vézelay (1892-1984) in 1980.

It is a bold claim, but Simon Grant, the curator of the artist’s first dedicated exhibition in over 40 years, points out that a lost 1928 drawing easily pre-dates the shift to abstraction by contemporaries Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

“I’ve been wanting to do [an exhibition] for a long time,” Grant says, “it’s long overdue. She’s such an underrated artist in so many ways.”

The self-proclaimed “Master of Line” applied herself to sculpture, painting, collage, prints, photography, textiles and more.

She was admired by her peers, among them Wassily Kandinsky, Hans Arp and Marlow Moss. Opening this month at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in Bristol, Paule Vézelay: Living Lines will include more than 60 works from the