Anthea Alley

Anthea Priscilla Frederica Alley (nee Oswell, 5 January 1927 – 9 October 1993) was a British sculptor, painter, and teacher.^[1]

She was born Anthea Priscilla Frederica Oswell in Seremban, Malaya on 5 January 1927.^[2] She lived in Australia and South Africa during the Second World War.^[3] In 1944 she moved to London with her family and studied painting at the Regent Street Polytechnic,^[4] Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art.^[5] She taught at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham for several years.

Alley started as a painter, focusing on brutalist abstract paintings utilizing everyday materials, but she is best known for her sculptures.^[6] When it came to sculpture, Alley was self-taught and by the late 1950s she was recognized as an emerging British sculptor.^[7] From 1957 she concentrated on sculpture art, producing welded pieces alongside assemblage paintings.^[3] In 1960, Alley held her first one-person show at the Molton Gallery and in 1961 she received a John Moores Painting Prize.^[5][3]

She was married to Ronald Alley, an art historian and Keeper of the Modern Collection at the Tate Gallery, London.^[5] They had two children, Melissa and Fiammetta Alley.^[8]

She died in London on 9 October 1993.^[2]

Examples of her work is in the permanent collection of the Tate Gallery, the Arts Council and Birmingham Art Gallery.^[4][3]