A retrospective exhibition of sculpture in bronze relating to the theme of leaf and blade forms, for which this artist is internationally renowned. Also including a body of works on paper from her studies at the Slade and the Florence Academy of Fine Art, from the 1950s and '60s.
Margaret Lovell, born in 1939 in Bristol, studied at West of England College of Art 1956-60, with Ernest Pascoe, then at Slade School of Art 1960-2 under A.H.Gerrard, where she won First Prizes for sculpture and figure studies. In 1962 she worked at the Morris Singer Foundry where she learned about bronze casting techniques. Morris Singer is the oldest Foundry in the world and it was here that she was introduced to Barbara Hepworth, with whom she built a good friendship. She went to the Academy of Fine Art, Florence with an Italian State Scholarship from 1962-63 and gained a Greek Government scholarship 1965-6.
Lovell taught at Portsmouth College of Art, 1963-5. She was elected into the Royal West of England Academy in 1972 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1973. Lovell took part in many mixed and group shows across the UK and overseas including Bath, St Ives, London and New Zealand. First major retrospective at Plymouth City Art Gallery, 1972.
The Arts Council and Plymouth and Bristol Public Galleries hold examples of her work, specially commissioned. A monograph 'Margaret Lovell: Sculptor', with text by Peter Davies, was published by Sansom & Co in 2009. In July 2012 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from University of Leicester. She has held some eighteen solo exhibitions and numerous mixed exhibitions across the country and in New Zealand.
Work by this well respected and much-loved sculptor can be found in many private and public collections in Great Britain, Europe, the United States of America and New Zealand, including the collections of The Arts Council of Great Britain, Barclays Bank and Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. Represented by David Simon Contemporary, Bath since 2015. Solo exhibition at David Simon Contemporary, Castle Cary March 2019 and July 2022.
