Fruit of Friendship: Portraits by Mary Beale

Mary Beale, Portrait of a Young Boy Seated in a Landscape, 1680s, Philip Mould & Company, London.

Mary Beale (1633-1699) was one of Britain’s first professional woman artists. Fruit of Friendship: Portraits by Mary Beale, features twenty-five of her works from public and private collections. The exhibition spans her entire career and include self-portraits, portraits of her family and friends, and formal commissions.

 The exhibition also sheds light on Beale’s studio practice and highlight its radical reversal of conventional gender roles for the period. Beale’s husband Charles dedicated himself to his wife’s career and supported her studio diligently by priming canvases, manufacturing pigments, and recording business in a series of notebooks. It presents three works not seen in public before, including an early re-discovered portrait of the artist’s husband and a portrait of Anne Sotheby, which is displayed in the gallery until mid May when it will be exhibited in Tate Britain’s upcoming exhibition, Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520–1920.

The exhibition is complemented by an openly available online catalogue. In anticipation of a comprehensive printed publication scheduled for Summer 2024, this online resource is an accessible guide to Beale’s works and their significance.