Stella E. Marks

Also known as Stella E. Lewis, Stella Lewis Marks, Stella Marks
  • Artist (Painter)
Female miniature painter who trained in Melbourne but lived mostly in London and New York, returning to Australia for the odd exhibition, instead exhibiting with royal societies in London. Among her subjects were dancers and princesses. She settled in England for her husband's film career, returning eventually to Australia.
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miniature painter, studied at Melbourne’s National Gallery School under Bernard Hall and Frederick McCubbin . She went to London in 1911 but returned to Australia for a few months in 1914 [according to Erickson p.17, Stella Lewis Marks had an art school in Perth in 1913.] Then she went to New York and remained in America for nearly twenty years, with several trips to Europe. She painted over 200 miniatures in America. In 1916 she was invited to Ottowa to paint HRH Princess Patricia of Connaught (later Lady Patricia Ramsay), whose father was Governor-General of Canada. Along with other works, the resulting miniature was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1931. Stella Lewis Marks exhibited every year with the Royal Academy and with the Royal Miniature Society in Bond Street. She was elected a member of London’s Royal Miniature Society in 1922, the youngest member at that time. She revisited Australia in 1925, and the following year the Felton Bequest acquired her miniature of the dancer Maud Allen for the National Gallery of Victoria. Also a member of the American Society of Miniature Painters, she was offered the position of president in 1935, despite being a British subject, but was unable to accept as her husband (Montagu Marks) had joined London Films with Alexander Korda and they were moving to England to settle there permanently. In fact, she returned to Australia with her husband in 1937-38; two of her miniatures were included in the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s 150th Anniversary Exhibition in 1938.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1999
Last updated:
2011