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| Margaret Pew | |
|---|---|
| Name | Margaret Pew |
| Birth date | 1892 |
| Birth place | Bristol |
| Death date | 1967 |
| Death place | London |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Painter; printmaker; teacher |
| Years active | 1914–1962 |
| Known for | Landscape painting; lithography; wartime poster design |
Margaret Pew was a British painter and printmaker active in the first half of the 20th century, noted for landscape compositions, lithographic portfolios, and contributions to visual propaganda during the First World War and Second World War. Her work bridged regional scenes of the West Country and metropolitan exhibitions in London, with a teaching career that connected provincial art schools to institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts and the Slade School of Fine Art. Pew exhibited widely at venues including the Royal Society of British Artists, the New English Art Club, and the Tate Gallery.
Pew was born in Bristol into a family with mercantile and naval ties, the daughter of a shipping agent who had business links to Liverpool and Bristol Docks. Her mother descended from a merchant family associated with trade routes to Bermuda and Jamaica, and relatives included officers who served in the Royal Navy during the late Victorian era. The Pew household hosted visitors from the Bristol Old Vic circle and patrons connected to the Bristol School of Artists, creating an early cultural environment that fostered her interest in visual arts. Family trips to the Cotswolds and the Isle of Wight informed her early landscape sketches.
Pew received formal training at the Bristol School of Art before winning a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art in London. At the RCA she studied under instructors associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement and interacted with contemporaries who later taught at the Slade School of Fine Art and exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts. She undertook printmaking workshops with masters from the Society of Wood Engravers and attended evening classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. A period of study in Paris placed her in proximity to artists from the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and exhibitions at the Salon d'Automne, where she encountered works by members of the École de Paris.
Pew's early career included commissioned illustrations for periodicals published in London and a series of lithographs depicting coastal scenes around Cornwall and Devon. During the First World War she produced poster designs for committees linked to the War Office and charities associated with the British Red Cross Society, work later paralleled by commissions during the Second World War for the Ministry of Information. Her works were sold through galleries such as the Goupil Gallery and the Curwen Gallery, and she mounted solo shows at the Carfax Gallery and the Beaux Arts Gallery. Major portfolios include "Shorelines" and "Factory Towns", which were acquired by collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum and regional museums in Bristol and Bath. Pew also served as a visiting lecturer at the University of Bristol and as a faculty member at the Bournemouth School of Art, mentoring students who later exhibited with the New English Art Club and the Royal Society of British Artists.
Pew's style combined observational realism with a flattened, decorative approach influenced by printmakers associated with the British Colour Printmakers' Society and the graphic clarity of Japanese woodblock prints circulating in London collections after exhibitions at the British Museum. She cited admiration for landscape treatments by artists shown at the Royal Academy of Arts and the compositional modernism seen at the Salon d'Automne. Her palette and draughtsmanship show kinship with contemporaries who exhibited at the New English Art Club and with printmaking innovations promoted by the Society of Wood Engravers and the Fitzwilliam Museum's print rooms. Critics compared aspects of her lithographs to work displayed at the Tate Gallery and to lithographic experiments by members of the London Group.
Pew married a civil engineer who had professional connections to the Great Western Railway and lived for long periods in Bristol and later in London's Hampstead area, where she associated with members of the Fellowship of Artists. She retired from active exhibition after a stroke in the early 1960s and died in London in 1967. Her papers and sketchbooks entered regional archives, and retrospective exhibitions at municipal galleries in Bristol and Bath reassessed her contribution to British printmaking and wartime visual culture. Works by Pew remain in the holdings of the Victoria and Albert Museum, regional museums, and private collections that focus on 20th-century British printmakers and British poster art.
Category:1892 births Category:1967 deaths Category:British women painters Category:British printmakers