(1904 - 1995)
Mary Adshead was a leading mural painter whose observant figurative style earned her frequent public building commissions from the 1940s to 1960s. Born in London, she was taught watercolour painting by her father Stanley, an architect and professor at the University of London. After a year in Paris, she studied at the Slade School of Art under Professor Henry Tonks (1921-1924). Her first mural project with Rex Whistler, a fellow student, was at the Highways Club, Shadwell in 1924. A year later she was commissioned to decorate a room for Professor Charles Reilly in Liverpool; decorations that are now based at Liverpool University. In 1929 she married the artist Stephen Bone, and they made many painting and sketching tours through Europe. Adshead participated in the Applied Art Exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1926 and the Art in Industry Exhibition at Burlington House, 1935. She exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1927, and with the Women's International Art Club from the mid-1930s, serving on their Committee in 1951. In 1930 she had a solo show at the Goupil Gallery, and was elected a member of the New English Art Club. In 1937 Adshead produced wall panels for the British Pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition. She became increasingly interested in mosaic design, leading her in 1962 to study in Ravenna and Sicily. In 1983, she embarked on a major mosaic mural for a pedestrian subway in Rotherhithe. Adshead’s commissions include murals (no longer extant) for London Underground at Bank (1926) and Piccadilly Circus Stations (1928); for Selfridges (destroyed 1967); for the Ministry of Works (1954) and the Commonwealth Institute (1967).She also produced London Underground posters, stamp designs and magazine and book illustrations.
