Catalogue Introduction
A couple of years ago, conscious that my wife's birthday was looming and I had as yet bought her nothing to mark it, I found myself window shopping among the retail therapists of london searching for inspiration. My odyssey had barely started as I headed up St. James's Street, when I noticed that a new exhibition had opened in the recently refurbished Portland Gallery. Peering downwards you could just about catch glimpses of exquisitely observed atmospheric paintings by Mary Anne Aytoun Ellis. I saw immediately that I needed to look no further and chose a long, evocatively watery drawing which, fortunately, my wife liked as much as I did.
The paintings were inspired by the artist's home county; the Sussex of the South Downs with its beech hangers, and its chalk streams which hurry in and out of the roots of the willows and alders lining their banks. Her pictures were extraordinarily detailed, but nevertheless conveyed the secret feel of the hidden pools that we stumble on in chalkland valleys. I have spent much of my life in the winterbourne valleys of Dorset and recognized with a tug of emotion the skill with which the artist had captured the spirit of such places. They are timeless and beautiful, perhaps especially between the late autumn and the early spring when the water levels are high and the architectural quality of the trees is clearest.
Shortly afterwards the artist got in touch to ask whether we would lend the picture for an exhibition. As a result, we met Mary Anne Aytoun Ellis for the first time and she came to look at some of the ancient trees at Hatfield Park. I expected her to be taken with our veteran oaks, but she really fell in love with two extraordinary ash trees in a piece of woodland rather further away.
I asked her to paint them and it immediately became clear whence the detailed nature of her work comes. She spent about three months on and off working on what she called a "preliminary sketch." The result was an immensely detailed work in pencil, pen and ink and gesso which conveyed the magical quality of these timeless wizards and made us all look at them afresh. The finished painting is a remarkable achievement which fully matches the promise of its pathfinder.
The works in Mary Anne's present exhibition show all the characteristics we now and love in her; mastery of detail based on knowledge of the structure of what she is painting and the ability to convey a sense of place because she is rooted in the country she depicts. The success of this exhibition reinforces the feeling among those who own one of her works how lucky they are to do so.
Lord Salisbury