18 Facts About Mary Kessell

Mary Merlin Kessell was a British figurative painter, illustrator, designer and war artist.

Mary Kessell spent six weeks in Germany, travelling to the recently liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as well as other major cities including Berlin.

Mary Kessell produced charcoal drawings of refugees, primarily of women and children which she subsequently sold to the War Artists Advisory Committee.

Mary Kessell later returned to the Central School to teach at the School of Silversmithing and Jewellery alongside the painter Richard Hamilton.

Mary Kessell began her artistic training at the Clapham School of Art, where she studied from 1935 to 1937, then at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1937 to 1939.

Just three female war artists worked abroad during World War II; as one of them, Mary Kessell was asked to document refugees "moving through Europe in the aftermath of the German surrender".

Mary Kessell spent six weeks in Germany, from 9 August 1945 to 20 September, where she made charcoal drawings of refugees as well as keeping a diary of her experiences.

Mary Kessell arrived later than the other war artists, including Doris Zinkeisen, Edgar Ainsworth and Eric Taylor, who had visited the camp immediately after its liberation.

Convoys for the camp survivors to return to their home countries were being organized and Mary Kessell witnessed a number of these departures.

At Belsen, Mary Kessell completed seven drawings in black and sanguine charcoal, which she called Notes from Belsen Camp, 1945.

Unlike the work produced by the other artists, which often featured detailed scenes and backgrounds, Mary Kessell's subjects are entirely removed from any sense of background.

In 1939 Mary Kessell painted a mural, Judith and Helofernes, for the old Westminster Hospital.

Mary Kessell worked as a designer in the Shell Studio at Shell-Mex House and produced posters for Shell and later, in 1964, for London Transport promoting Kew Gardens.

Mary Kessell exhibited some of her refugee drawings at the first of her four solo shows to be held at the Leicester Galleries in 1950.

Mary Kessell joined the staff at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in 1950 and later taught at the Central School where she was brought in by the then Principal William Johnstone to teach at the School of Silversmithing and Jewellery there, alongside painter Richard Hamilton.

Mary Kessell returned to teach at Camberwell between 1955 and 1960.

Mary Kessell's work is held in London collections including the Imperial War Museum, the Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Mary Kessell was married to the poster designer Tom Eckersley.