10/07/2020
Oil painting, Margaret Graeme Niven. Measures 12 x 9 in (30 x 23 cm)
For sale £195.
Margaret Graeme Niven, ROI, NS (1906-1997) was born in Marlow in Buckinghamshire into an artistic family. Her father, William Niven (died 1921) was a noted etcher and successful business owner. The actor, David Niven, was the son of Margaret's half brother. After her father's death Margaret and her mother went to live in Wi******er, where Margaret studied art at the local art school. Margaret also studied in London at Heatherley's and privately under her mentor Bernard Adams ROI. She had a number of solo shows, including of her flower paintings at the Cooling Galleries in London in 1959.
In 1932 she was elected to the recently formed National Society of Painters and Gravers (NS). In 1936 she was also elected a member of the Royal Society of Oil Painters (ROI), when she was only thirty. She was then the youngest to receive that honour, having been noticed by H Davis Richter who had seen one of her landscapes, and she remained a member for more than sixty years. Apart from exhibiting at the ROI and NS, Margaret also exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1946, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Leicester Galleries, and Wildenstein's. During the late 1940s and 1950s she had a studio in London and she executed much work in the capital. In 1963 she moved to Sandhills, near Godalming in Surrey.
Margaret Niven is best known for her paintings of the Hampshire countryside, her flower subjects, and scenes in London. She would usually produce oil sketches on the spot – often small in size – which she would 'work up' later in her studio.
