Mary Potter 1900-1981
Still Life with Violets, c1940
oil on panel
8¾ by 9¾ inches
initialled lower right

Provenance
The Artist, gift to
J.B. Priestley, bequeathed to
Mary Hope Allen
Private Collection, UK



Mary Potter first gave this painting to the playwright and author J.B. Priestley (1894- 1984). Priestley was part of Potter's social circle, which also included her Aldeburgh neighbours composer Benjamin Britten and opera singer Peter Pears. Benjamin Britten had collaborated with Priestley on the incidental music to his play Johnson over Jordan in 1939.
Priestley bequeathed the painting to, another lifelong friend of Mary's, writer and broadcaster Mary Hope Allen whom she had first met whilst they were both students at the Slade in 1918.