Portrait and landscape painter and draughtsman, and teacher, born in Kent. She studied at Southern College of Art, Portsmouth; Royal Academy Schools; and Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. Her notable teachers included Claude Rogers, Peter Greenham, Henry Rushbury and Robert Buhler; until his death she shared a studio with Buhler, saying: “My aim is to justify his faith in my work.” Gaussen Marks aspired “to combine the figurative and the abstract in painting by colour relationships, form/shape, subject matter subservient to the whole.” From 1973–9 she was head of the art department at Queen’s College. Among her main works were portraits of Lord Tonypandy, former speaker of the House of Commons, Leo Marks and Helene Hanff, the author (Elena Gaussen married Leo Marks in 1966, marriage dissolved 2000, the year before he died.