Prunella Clough

Prunella Clough 1919-1999

Painter and printmaker, full name Cara Prunella Clough-Taylor, born in London, where she continued to work with forays into the provinces. Her father, Eric, was a Board of Trade official who wrote poetry; her mother, Thora, was sister of the noted designer Eileen Gray (as trustee of Gray's estate, Clough was later able to extend her prodigious anonym-ous philanthropy, from which many artists benefited). Studied at Chelsea School of Art, 1938-9, then during World War II did various jobs, including a stint as a draughtsman.

[Clough's] first solo show at Leger Gallery, 1947, later exhibitions following at Roland, Browse and Delban-co; Leicester and Grosvenor Galleries; New Art Centre, and elsewhere. She had a retrospective at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1960; another at Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield a dozen years later; Warwick Arts Trust, 1982; Annely Juda Fine Art, 1989; in 1996 there was a toured show of work from 1970 which included Oriel 31, Newtown, and Camden Arts Centre; Kettle's Yard Gallery, Cambridge, showed early paintings to recent work, 1999, the year she won the Jerwood Painting Prize; in 2000 Annely Juda Fine Art held a memorial exhibition; in 2001 the Hayward Gallery organised a tour which included Gainsborough's House, Sudbury; unseen reliefs, drawings and prints were shown by Annely Juda and The Fine Art Society held a show of works from the collection of Dr Thomas Sutherland, both 2003; and Andrew Stewart curated the Clough exhibition Seeing The World Sideways at Olympia, 2004. Clough's early work was concerned with industrial subjects which leaned towards abstraction, which later became the dominant mode, with a surprising range of colours and motifs. Tate Gallery and Arts Council hold examples. 

Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)

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