Mavis Johns was born 15th June 1914, Plymouth, Devon. She began drawing and painting at the age of six, and was soon advised to be formally trained. She attended Torquay Art College, where she was given an initial grounding. She then studied at Sir John Cass College in the City of London, followed by Byam Shaw College in Kensington, where she was trained in the Old Master style. She further studied in Dusseldorf, where her army officer husband, Bruce, was stationed; and also in Florence, where she studied during a period of three years, first at the Academia San Marco, and then at Studio Simi. There her talents were spotted by the renowned painter, Pietro Annigoni, who had just completed his portrait of the Queen Mother in 1963. He invited her to come and watch him work in his Florence studio. Although he worked in tempera and she in oil, she adopted from him the ‘scumbling’ method, which required first a preparatory under-painting in monochrome, and after ‘glazing’, dragging the paint over the prepared surface, but only part covering it to allow the underlying ground to show through; paint was then added directly into the areas of applied colour.’ Following this, Annigoni sponsored her application to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
Mavis became a Member of the Paris Salon in 1973, having exhibited there since 1962, gaining the Gold, Silver and Honourable Mention medals. She also exhibited in the major galleries of the United Kingdom, including the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, whose collection toured the country in 1966, The Pastel Society, and The Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition – April to August 1972, where she displayed, ‘The Artist’s Mother’. She also exhibited in Germany, Singapore, Calcutta, Paris, Biarritz and Florence. She had personal shows in Biarritz, at the Salon International, Paris, and at the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. In 1982 and again 1983, Mavis was invited to exhibit in New York by the ‘Artists of Europe’. This exhibition toured the major cities of the United States, before finishing in Dallas, Texas.
Awards she received included the Gold Medal, Paris Salon, 1966; Diploma D’Honneur – International Salon, Paris, 1974; Silver Medal, The New York International Art Festival, The Coliseum, 1983; Premio Internazionale – ‘Le Muse’, Accademia Internazionale, 1984.
Text source: the family of the artist
