Mabel Maugham, née Hardy, known as “Beldy”

(1874 – 1972)

Stage View of Ballet, 1936

textile and embroidery collage with watercolour highlights on linen

signed lower left ‘Beldy’ and with labels verso giving the artist’s title and Leicester Galleries’ exhibition details

34 x 26 cm.

(framed 40.5 x 32 cm.)

in its original silvered frame

Provenance

Leicester Galleries, London, 1936, from whom purchased by

Ella Annesley Donat née Voysey;

thence by descent until 2026.

Exhibited

London, Leicester Galleries, 1936, no.31.

Mabel Maugham was the sister-in-law of the writer Somerset Maugham, and she herself came from a long line of artists and musicians as the daughter of the artist Heywood Hardy (1842-1933), known for his now very out of fashion hunting scenes, and granddaughter of the Regency portraitist, Sir William Beechey (1753-1839). Her chosen name, “Beldy”, was a blend of her first name Mabel with her maiden name, Hardy.

Beldy studied art and music at the Paris Conservatoire, yet even as an eight-year-old, Whistler pronounced that “We shall certainly hear of her one day” (source: Grosvenor Gallery catalogue for a one-woman show of Beldy’s fabric pictures, 10-31 January 1967).

In 1929, having established her career primarily as a watercolourist, Beldy had the inspiration to work with textiles. She was encouraged by her daughter, the artist Daphne Maugham (1897-1982), and her Italian son-in-law, the metaphysical artist Felice Casorati (1883-1963), to turn almost solely to painted textile art, and it was in this medium that she experienced a blossoming of her later-career. Her textiles were first shown in New York, but the present piece was exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in 1936. The Grosvenor Gallery went on to become her principal dealers in London from 1939.

‘Stage View of Ballet’ was purchased from the Leicester Galleries by Ella Annesley Donat, who was the first wife of the actor Robert Donat, and the daughter of the major Arts & Crafts designer and architect, Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941).

Beldy's textiles rapidly generated international interest and she had sell-out shows in Milan, Geneva, Basel, Paris, Turin and Rome. The Victoria & Albert Museum bought some of her work for the National collection, as did the Jeu de Paume in Paris.