Mary Louise Coulouris

Mary Louise Coulouris (17 July 1939 – 20 December 2011) was an American-British artist.[1]

Early life and education

Mary Louise Coulouris was born in 1939 in New York City, the daughter of actor George Coulouris, and sister of computer scientist George F. Coulouris. She spent her first ten years in the United States, mainly in Beverly Hills.[2]

She attended the Parliament Hill School, Chelsea School of Art, and the Slade School of Fine Art.[3] She studied under William Coldstream and Anthony Gross at the Slade, and spent two years in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and Atelier 17, as a student of Stanley William Hayter. Her first solo exhibition was in Paris in 1964.[4]

Career

Coulouris established a home and studio in Strawberry Bank, Linlithgow, West Lothian in 1976. Commissions included murals at the Linlithgow railway station (1985)[5] and the Royal Edinburgh Hospital (1990); a series of watercolors for the House of Lords (2004), and a set of watercolors inspired by poetry for the Royal Free Hospital (2008); rug design for the Scottish Poetry Library (1999) and tapestries for Yale College, Wrexham (2002).[6]

Coulouris was a fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.[7] As a member of the League of Socialist Artists, she participated in "United We Stand", a 1974 London exhibition about mining, which featured works by coal miners and professional artists.[8]

In addition to painting, printmaking, and design, Coulouris wrote two short plays with her son, Duncan Wallace.[9]

Personal life

Mary Louise Coulouris married Scottish engineer Gordon Wallace in 1971; they had two children. The couple had a second home in Hydra, Greece, where Coulouris painted seaside scenes.[6]

Death

Mary Louise Coulouris died in 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland, aged 72, from motor neurone disease. A biography written by her husband was published in 2015.[10]

References

  1. ^ Buckman, David (2 February 2012). "Mary Louise Coulouris". the Guardian. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
  2. ^ Phil Davison,Mary Louise Coulouris obituary, heraldscotland.com, 17 February 2012.
  3. ^ Sarah Ingrams, "Celebrated Socialist Artist Mary Louise Coulouris Reflected the Lives of Working People", Ham & High, 2 March 2012.
  4. ^ Buckman, David; "Mary Louise Coulouris Obituary", The Guardian, 2 February 2012.
  5. ^ Linlithgow Heritage Trail, annotated map for walking tour, linlithgow.com; accessed 30 November 2015.
  6. ^ a b Davison, Phil; "Obituary: Mary Louise Coulouris – Printmaker who Drew Much Inspiration from Scotland and Greece", The Scotsman, 2 January 2012.
  7. ^ Hopkinson, Martin J.; Tilbury, Clare; No Day Without a Line: The History of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, Ashmolean Museum (1999): 74. ISBN 1854441191
  8. ^ Walker, John A.; Left Shift: Radical Art in 1970s Britain, I.B. Tauris, 2002, pg. 119; ISBN 1860647650
  9. ^ Coulouris, Mary Louise; Wallace, Duncan; Two Short Plays: Bookface and the Acquisition, West Lothian Letters, 2012; ISBN 9781471033179
  10. ^ Wallace, Gordon; Singing Softly to the Light: The Biography of Mary Louise Coulouris (Unicorn Press 2015); ISBN 9781910065884