CLOUGH, Prunella

1919 - 1999

Cara Prunella Clough-Taylor was born at Knightsbridge, London on 14 November 1919, only child of wealthy [Eric] Edward Lorne Frederick Clough-Taylor (26 October 1881-14 May 1947), a Board of Trade official, and his wife Thora Zelma Grace Gray (22 October 1875-13 April 1966), second daughter of the late James MacLaren Smith Gray and Lady Gray, Clough-Taylor and Thora Gray married at London City in April 1911. Cara Prunella was a cousin of artist Ian Campbell-Gray (1901-1946) and she painted under the name Prunella Clough. Initially, Prunella was educated privately by her father, who was known as the minor poet, Eric Taylor, and in 1937 she enrolled at the Chelsea School of Art and became a lady member of London's Bath Club at 34 Dover Street and in 1938, she took classes at Chelsea with the sculptor Henry Moore (30 July 1898–31 August 1986). Prunella had spent time on the North Suffolk coastline from childhood, lodging at Woldside, Constitution Hill, Southwold and returned in 1945 when Prunella's mother mother Thora purchased their former lodgings 'Woldside' but, although owning the house until 1966, exhibiting at such Suffolk venues as Festival of Art at Eye Town Hall in May 1951, she latterly concentrated her activity in London with frequent weekends in France. On her mother's death in 1966 she sold the Southwold house and rented a studio in Lowestoft, Suffolk and her sequence showing fishermen with nets, hosing metal fish baskets, or weighing fish at Lowestoft Harbour, looks back to an earlier more romantic Newlyn School era, with a patriotic post-war flavour. Prunella exhibited widely with her first solo show at the Leger Gallery in London in 1947 other venues included Roland Browse & Delbanco Gallery in 1950 showing a composition 'Cranes' also exhibiting at the Grosvenor Gallery in London, and she painted 'Lowestoft Harbour' for the 1951 Festival of Britain and already her figures were veering towards geometry and abstraction, and she continued throughout her life to paint the industrial landscape. As Cara Prunella Clough-Taylor, she died in London on 26 December 1999, she was unmarried. Her works are held widely including the Tate Gallery.

---

Works by This Artist