Muriel Archer

Landscape of Provence in France - Late 20th Century Watercolour by Muriel Archer

Circa 1980

Muriel Archer was born on June 25, 1911. Fond of drawing and painting from an early age, she did her first drawing when she was four years old. She later studied at Hornsey School of Art and it was while she was there, she was offered the chance to occupy a studio in St Ives for a couple of weeks. In the mid-1930s, she married Ernest Friskney Archer, always known as Frisk and lived with him at first in Chelsea, where she had her own studio, before moving to Enfield, to The Laurels, which became the subject matter of several of her paintings. She became a member of the Enfield Art Circle and eventually its president and also began to teach life drawing. She was to bring some of her students to St Ives where they enjoyed the facilities offered by the St Ives School of Painting and where she got to know Leonard Fuller, the school's founder and his wife Marjorie Mostyn. After her husband died in 1972, the pull of St Ives became too much and she decided to live there permanently. She died just before her 100th birthday.