My Parents

Lost Figures (1960) and My Parents (1957) 

Both paintings by Cynthia Pell in The Women’s Art Collection carry an emotional intensity. Head in his hand with steely-green skin, the male figure in My Parents (1957) is captured in a state of despair. Pell is known to have had a closer relationship with her father than mother, which is perhaps conveyed in the tender depiction of her father. The items on the table appear disjointed, with the cutlery awkwardly positioned, mirroring the father’s broken psychological state and the mother’s non-tactile or uncommunicative response. Perhaps describing this very painting, friend of the artist, Natalie Dower (2000), recalled her reaction when Pell described how she had burnt the unsold works from the Beaux Art Gallery exhibition: ‘I was horrified and she said “Well, if you’d like a painting you can have one”. I said that I would, which is how I came to own the painting of her parents.’ 

Lost Figures is expressive nearly to the point of abstraction. The muddied colours in the top left-hand corner of the canvas create an ominous atmosphere, while the furore of tangled and violent bodies add to this distressed state of physicality. At Camberwell Art College, Pell studied under Martin Bloch, whose tutelage provided her with a direct link with German Expressionism.