Stephenson's Locomotion I, 1952
Mary Adshead (1904-1995)
'Stephenson's Locomotion I' is a characteristic example of Mary Adshead’s inventive approach to modern composition, combining painting with collage and found printed material. Typically described as an oil and collage on board, the work incorporates fragments of printed ephemera—postage stamps, financial documents, bonds, and banknotes—embedded within a carefully structured pictorial surface. The result occupies a space between painting, design, and assemblage, reflecting Adshead’s sustained engagement with applied arts and visual culture in everyday circulation.
Adshead (1904–1995), trained at the Slade School of Art, was best known as a muralist, illustrator, and designer, and this work sits naturally within her interdisciplinary practice. Her use of stamps and currency is not incidental but conceptually embedded: it reflects an interest in systems of communication, exchange, and value, as well as the visual languages embedded in bureaucratic and commercial print culture. In this respect, the collage extends her broader artistic concern with integrating fine art principles into public and functional contexts.
Rather than treating collage as a disruptive or purely experimental device, Adshead incorporates it into a coherent decorative order. The work exemplifies her belief that art should operate within lived and public environments rather than remain confined to the easel tradition. ‘Collage from old stamps, bonds and notes’ thus belongs to her mature practice, in which she fuses painterly structure with design thinking, transforming ordinary printed ephemera into a disciplined yet visually dynamic composition that bridges mural decoration, modern design, and experimental collage.
Mary Adshead (1904-1995)
Mary Adshead was an English painter, muralist, illustrator and designer. Born in Bloomsbury, London, she was able to enrol at the Slade School of Art in 1921, aged just sixteen. There Henry Tonks recognised her ability and arranged her first mural commission, for a boys’ club in Wapping, working with Rex Whistler. This composition was painted in the first year of Bone’s marriage to Adshead, who, although still in her mid 20s was already enjoying considerable success. This painting was included in her first solo exhibition at the Goupil Gallery, and, touchinly, purchased by her father in law, Sir Muirhead Bone. From the same exhibition the Tate acquired ‘The Flood’. In the same year she was elected a member of the New English Art Club. Bone and Adshead collaborated on a number of mural schemes and illustrated books together, but her career was longer than her husband’s and more successful in terms of commissions and recognition. After Bone’s death in 1958, Adshead travelled widely in both Europe and the United States.
