‘Earthly Delights’

Mary Adshead 1904-1995 at Liverpool University Art Gallery until April 29th.
Mary Adshead was famous for her murals but you won’t see many here of course because they’re on walls at places such as Churches, Colwyn Bay Pier Pavilion, Lewis’s restaurant in Leicester and Selfridges top floor restaurant and a few have been destroyed by fire, bombs or builders.. There is one on the ground floor here though called ‘Tropical Fantasy’. The rest of the exhibition is on the top floor as usual and there are at least some photographs, sketches etc. of the other murals. In fact, there’s a lot of stuff in glass cabinets – letters, books and even stamps! From 1949 to 1963 she was a most successful designer of British stamps, one of the letters is from her, complaining about the changes that were made much to her annoyance.
They call her style ‘amusing’ and some of the paintings such as ‘The Cruise’ are reminiscent of Stanley Spencer. I like them.