Mary Woodall

Mary Woodall also known as "Mighty Mary" (1901–1988) was a British art historian, museum director, and Thomas Gainsborough scholar.

Life and work

Mary Woodall was born in Chelsea, west London, to Henry Woodall and Bertha (née Nettlefold). She attended Cheltenham Ladies' College and majored in history and then Somerville College, Oxford. After college she attended the Slade School of Fine Art, under Franklin White and it is there she first studied the drawings of Thomas Gainsborough. She was awarded a Ph.D. at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1939 with a dissertation on Gainsborough's landscape drawings.[1]

During World War II Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery had seven galleries bombed and in 1942 Woodall secured a position as Keeper of Art, and under the director Trenchard Cox who arrived in 1944, helped rebuild the damage.[1] In 1948, she organised a pioneer exhibition of the works of Richard Wilson.[2] In 1949 she published Thomas Gainsborough: his life and work, this book is in combination with her later, related publications remain key text for Gainsborough scholars.[2] In 1956 she became the director of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery when Cox took a new job at a different museum.[1] Woodall retired in 1964 and in her retirement she held positions on various museum/art related boards including the Felton Trust for the National Gallery of Victoria, University College London and a trustee of the National Gallery, London.[2]

In 1988 she died at age 87 in a nursing home in Burcot, Oxfordshire. She never married.[2]

Publications

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Mary Woodall". Dictionary of Art Historians. Retrieved May 24, 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Garlick, Kenneth (2004). "Mary Woodall (1901-1988)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved May 24, 2014.