Eileen Mayo @ Towner Eastbourne

The work of multi-skilled painter, printmaker, illustrator and tapestry designer Eileen Mayo (1906-1994) is celebrated in an exhibition, A Natural History.

Despite her exceptional skills, Mayo remains largely unknown in the UK.   She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire just before she died in 1994, but her work is far more widely celebrated, exhibited and collected in New Zealand, where she relocated in 1962 (following ten years in Australia), and where she spent the remainder of her life.

Mayo’s long career was characterised by her crossover between fine and applied arts and associations and also time as an artist’s model.