#4391, Michael FELL

Michael was born in Heydon Park Road, Great Dunmow, Essex on 31 January 1939. His father Anthony Fell worked at that time in the plastics industry and his mother, June Fell, was a nurse. His sister Patricia was born in 1940.

During the war Michael was evacuated out of London to Newcastle, subsequently joining his mother and sister in Wales. He still talked late in his life about the hardships of that time, and how his shoes were stolen when he arrived in Newcastle. After the war Anthony fought a series of unsuccessful by elections, including the famous 1949 Hammersmith by election, footage of which includes the young Michael supporting his father’s campaign. Finally, Anthony became Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth in 1951, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Sir Arthur Fell who had previously held seat. Anthony held the seat until 1966, regaining it in 1970 and retiring in 1983. He was knighted in 1982.

Anthony had a strong interest in art, particularly ceramics. He took his children to an art museum or gallery every Sunday. This seems to have piqued Michael’s interest. After starting at the London Oratory (which he did not like), Michael attended St George’s School in Weybridge, where his passion for art began to develop very strongly.

He then did a foundation course at St Martin's School of Art. After that he spent some time in Italy in the early 60s, living in Florence and Rome. This was a time of real intellectual ferment for him, I think. He talked vividly about seeing a riot in Rome and about the friends he made in cafes and restaurants.

He then returned to London, painting during the day, and working at night, for a time, as a waiter at the famous Talk of the Town nightclub in Leicester Square. Michael then returned to study, attending the City and Guilds between 1965 and 1968 to study painting and print making. He married Maureen Lean in 1967. In 1969 he took up a travelling scholarship to the Continent, spending time with Maureen in Florence, Rome, Vienna and the Austrian countryside.

After he returned to London from the Continent, Michael continued to pursue his career as an artist, taking part time jobs to keep his family afloat financially and, he explained to me, to observe different aspects of life in the city.

Michael returned to the City and Guilds to teach in the early 1970s. Around this time he started exhibiting at the Jordan Gallery in Camden Lock, run by Bill Jordan. This time saw him undertaking important projects in relation to the old Covent Garden and Smithfield meat market. In 1972 his etchings were selected for the Modern Prints and Drawings exhibition at the British Museum. The next year, in 1973, he and Maureen bought a ruined farmhouse, called Barrère, in Gascony, near the village of Rozès. From then on, he spent every summer in Barrère restoring the house and painting the landscape.

Michael and Maureen had two sons. I was born in 1979 and Robert in 1982. After moving out of Kennington, London in 1984, Michael lived in Bungay, Suffolk. He also took the role of Head of Foundation Studies at the City and Guilds between 1985 and 1996. The 1980s saw him exhibiting in Galleria Renata, Chicago and the Belanthi Gallery, New York. Around this time he was also involved in a project with other artists relating to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Michael was also a fellow of the Society of Designer Craftsmen, chairing the society in the mid-eighties and arguing museums and galleries should promote a broader range of contemporary work (rather than focusing on buying more limited amounts of expensive work).

He also held a role as an examiner at the Princes Institute, London, in the late 1990s. 1996 saw him move to Fonnereau Road, by Christchurch Park, in Ipswich. Important solo shows from the 1990s included the Chappel Galleries in 1993, the Grosvenor Gallery in 1996, Chappel again in 1999, and Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich, in 2001. In 1998 he was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (RE).

From 2000 onwards, he lived full time at Barrère, where he set up a studio for his etchings. He did some significant painting commissions during the early 2000s, including a commission for his former pupil and friend Michael Estorick on his farmhouse, Routges, in Gascony and a project on the renaissance Chateau de Mazeres, also in Gascony.

In the subsequent 20 years important exhibitions included the Bankside on the Southbank in 2010, Chapelle de Las, Gascony in 2014 and a show organised by L’Association Culturelle Confluences de Rozès in 2022. Michael also exhibited annually at the English Artists exhibition in Condom, Gascony. In this period Michael taught a regular art class every Saturday and continued to paint and draw avidly. He was a regular at the local café in the town of Vic Fezansac, where he would draw people in the market. As well as work on landscapes, this period saw some intensive work on more social subject matter including a project about a local Gascon sheep farming family.

Other places he exhibited over the years of his long career included: The Cathedral, Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk; Wice Gallery, Paris; Abbey de Flaran Gers, France; Halesworth Gallery, Suffolk; Mall Galleries, London; Halifax House; Clementi Gallery, London; Mall Galleries, London; Comteroux, Perpignan; and the home of Arnaud and Anne Guinard in Gascony. He also exhibited with group shows in Singapore and New York. His work is to be found in permanent collections at the British Museum, the British Council, Christchurch Park Museum, Ipswich, Victoria National Gallery, University of Melbourne, and Churchill Library, Massachusetts.

He died in hospital in Toulouse on 12 March 2023. In an obituary in the Jackdaw, an art magazine, the Turner scholar Andrew Wilton wrote about Michael that the “intensity and variety of his involvement with human life and with nature, his sense of humour, his visual wit and engagement with the ideas, philosophical and spiritual, that underpin everything, make for an artist of enduring stature.”

Mark Fell KC, 2023

A book entitled The Art of Michael Fell is due to be published in October 2024.