Lionel Bulmer & Margaret Green

Foreword

Margaret and Lionel – Margaretandlionel to their friends, since their lives were fused together – were painters of deep devotion and quiet, private passion...

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Margaret and Lionel – Margaretandlionel to their friends, since their lives were fused together – were painters of deep devotion and quiet, private passion. Their pictures were focused on expanding pools of colour and expressed a joy in small things and a new-won sense of peace and freedom.

Margaret and Lionel alighted on gems in the gloom – on the delightful rituals of simple meals where the rich conversation can easily be imagined, on plants, books, lamps and Christmas decorations, on window shopping and on park walks and trips to the sea and countryside and magical tours of the futurist vision that was the Festival of Britain. Theirs was the art of meetings and outings and contented contemplation at home. And it was anything but insular for the inquiring eyes and minds of these stalwart members of the New English Art Club admired everything from the work of tutor Ruskin Spear, to those of French post-impressionist masters such as Bonnard and Vuillard and the Indian miniaturists relished on countless visits to the Victoria and Albert Museum. But they wore their outside influences very lightly – being true chiefly to each other.