Portrait of Mary Farmer at her studio in Guildford, 1973. Photograph by Philip Sayer.

In early January we were delighted to receive the donation of the archive of Mary Farmer (1940-2021) from the artist’s estate. Mary was for many years a tutor in textiles at Farnham, before taking up her post as Head of Tapestry at the Royal College of Art. She had distinguished career in the field until illness and injury forced the closure of her studio in 2001.

The exhibition which opens in May provides a rare chance to see nine completed tapestries and rugs on loan from the artist’s estate displayed alongside the Penumbra tapestry (1985) from our own collection and items from the archive - samples, photographs, studio and artist notes. The finished works dating mostly from the late 1970s to the early 1990s reveal the artist’s command of her chosen language of bold, colourfield abstraction.

The Mary Farmer Estate has created a Youtube channel with an overview of Farmer’s career, and a website is under development.

We look forward to celebrating an artist who made such a valuable contribution to the art of textiles in the late twentieth century.