At her retrospective at the Boundary Gallery, London in 1997, Sylvia Melland's paintings and prints included interiors and still-life. There were also scenes in France, in Aries and Aix-en-Provence, and at the Parisian studio on the rue Daguerre where she had worked in the 1930s. The choice of subject matter, drawn with a sinuous line and often brilliantly colored, indicates the influences that shaped Melland's works, including van Gogh and Matisse. The two are referred to in the oil Estammet Wimille of the early 1930s, in which a Matisse-like interior with table, chairs and windows is decorated with a painting of a billiard room, reminiscent of van Gogh's The All Night Cafe (1888. private collection). There were also images of architectural space that suggested other influences, such as contemporary design and film. In the painting Ladbroke Square of 1931, the viewer looks out through a distinctive modern curved railing, while in the aquatint Staircase at Stresaot 1963 a sinister, snaking balustrade shadows a red wall.
Melland had trained at Manchester School of Art, the Byam Shaw School, and for a short time at Euston Road, where she became friends with Margaret Mellis. Among Melland's exhibitions was a show with Thelma Hulbert at Basil Jonzen's Weekend Gallery in 1948, and with Evelyn Gibbs at Zwemmer's Gallery in 1957. She also exhibited with the Artists International Association, the Women's International Art Club and the Royal Society of Painter Etchers-Mellai, abandoned her strong palette during her Euston Road period, but her artistic mentors and her love of travel put the color back into her work. She travelled through Europe, stayed in South Africa with her sister in the 1920s, and the two also went to Sweden together. In a self-portrait painted in Stockholm in 1934, the young Melland wears a modish nautical striped top, and behind her is the sea. |
