School of Art

Contact Details

School of Art
Aberystwyth University
Buarth Mawr
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 1NG

Tel: +44 (0)1970 622460

Fax: +44 (0)1970 622461

Email: artschool@aber.ac.uk


Display artist/maker:

Mary Fraser Tytler

Born: 1849, India, Bombay   Died: 1938, UK, England, Surrey, Compton (?)

Designer, ceramicist, sculptor, illustrator and painter. Daughter of a Scottish gentleman employed by the East India Company and wife of artist George Frederick Watts (1817-1904). Born in India but raised in Scotland by her grandparents. Tytler started her art studies in Dresden in 1870 before enrolling in the National Art Training Schools the same year. Afterwards, she studied modelling at the Slade School of Art, 1872-3, under Aimé-Jules Dalou (1838-1902). She was involved with the Home Arts and Industries Association, which promoted the revival of traditional rural crafts, and was elected committee member. She gave clay modelling classes in the East End and, from the 1890s onwards, also taught terracotta pottery to locals in Compton, where Watts and her had their home Limnerslease. The greatest achievement of these classes was the decorating of Watts Chapel, designed by Tytler, near Limnerslease from 1895 to 1904. She established the Potters’ Arts Guild and successfully designed garden pottery and carpets and rugs for Liberty & Co. She took her inspiration e.g. from Celtic designs and art nouveau. Furthermore, after her husband’s death she acted as the keeper of his legacy and published his biography, Annals of an Artist’s Life, in 1912.

Objects in the collections associated with this artist/maker

A Memory PL5182 Prints1860s

A-Growing and A-Blowing PL5184 Prints1860s

The Phantom Isles PL5183 Prints1860s




 
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