Stella E. Marks

Also known as Stella E. Lewis
  • Artist (Painter)
Female miniature painter who trained in Melbourne but lived mostly in London and New York, returning to Australia for the odd exhibition, instead exhibiting with royal societies in London. Among her subjects were dancers and princesses. She settled in England for her husband's film career, returning eventually to Australia.
Talk | Version history | Updated Oct. 19, 2011 | Created Jan. 1, 1999
Name
Stella E. Marks
Also known as Stella E. Lewis
Gender
Female
Roles
  • Artist (Painter)
Residence
  • c.1911 London, England, UK
  • c.1914- c.1934 New York, NY, USA
Other Occupation
  • Art teacher
Active Period
  • c.1911- c.1953
Languages
  • English
Training
  • c.1911- c.1938 National Gallery School, Melbourne, Vic.
Is Indigenous
No
Initial Record Data Source
  • Legacy data. Source 'unknown'

miniature painter, studied at Melbourne’s National Gallery School under Bernard Hall and Frederick McCubbin . She went to London in 1911 but returned to Australia for a few months in 1914 [according to Erickson p.17, Stella Lewis Marks had an art school in Perth in 1913.] Then she went to New York and remained in America for nearly twenty years, with several trips to Europe. She painted over 200 miniatures in America. In 1916 she was invited to Ottowa to paint HRH Princess Patricia of Connaught (later Lady Patricia Ramsay), whose father was Governor-General of Canada. Along with other works, the resulting miniature was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1931. Stella Lewis Marks exhibited every year with the Royal Academy and with the Royal Miniature Society in Bond Street. She was elected a member of London’s Royal Miniature Society in 1922, the youngest member at that time. She revisited Australia in 1925, and the following year the Felton Bequest acquired her miniature of the dancer Maud Allen for the National Gallery of Victoria. Also a member of the American Society of Miniature Painters, she was offered the position of president in 1935, despite being a British subject, but was unable to accept as her husband (Montagu Marks) had joined London Films with Alexander Korda and they were moving to England to settle there permanently. In fact, she returned to Australia with her husband in 1937-38; two of her miniatures were included in the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s 150th Anniversary Exhibition in 1938.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1999
Last updated:
2011
associate of
L. Bernard Hall
1859
Artist (Painter)
associate of
Frederick McCubbin
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Alexander Korda
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Her Royal Highness Princess Patricia of Connaught
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
spouse of
Montagu Marks
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
relative of
Nancy Sibtain
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
London Films
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
American Society of Miniature Painters
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Royal Miniature Society
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Royal Academy
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
Patricia
Date
1934
(Minature portrait of Maud Allen)
Date
1926
Collections
Royal Miniature Society
None
Exhibition (exhibited at)
Bond Street, London, England, UK
150 Years of Australian Art
27 January 1938- 25 April 1938
Exhibition (exhibited at)
National Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, NSW
Royal Academy
1931
Exhibition (exhibited at)
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, UK
Citations:
  • (6 December 1953), She is painting Prince Charles, (Place: Sydney, NSW : Sun-Herald)
  • Erickson, Dorothy, (2000), Art and Design in Western Australia, Part 1, (Place: Australiana, (Volume 22, no. 1), pp. 10-17)
See also:
  • WORKS: Art in Australia 15 August 1938 p.19; p.17 illustrates a pleasant miniature in colour, Patricia 1934 (daughter of the artist at the age of thirteen years) signed 'Stella Lewis Marks'.