Oil on Canvas, 63x52cm.
Freda Marston R.B.A., R.O.I. 1895-1949
Freda Marston, nee Culow was born in Hampstead, and studied at the very first polytechnic – Regent Street Polytechnic, founded in 1838 – followed by four years in Italy with John Terrick Williams R.A. Williams was a landscapist working in oils, watercolour and pastels, and his luminescent style greatly influenced his pupil. In 1922 she married another landscape painter, Reginald St. Clair Marston (1886-1943).
She was a prolific artist, exhibiting at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the Royal Society of Artists Birmingham, the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, Manchester City Art Gallery, and the Royal Society of Women Artists.
She was elected to the R.B.A. in 1924 and the R.O.I. in 1925. She was also the only female artist commissioned by British Rail, the London, Midland and Scottish, and the London and North Eastern Railways to produce prosters and the shallow horizontal paintings used for artwork in the railways carriages.
Works in public collections include Flood the Amberley (Towner Art Gallery); Duncombe Park, Yorkshire and Lastingham, Yorkshire, both original British Railway carriage prints (National Railway Musuem).
