Joanna Carrington (1931 – 2003)

Joanna Carrington (1931 – 2003) was born in Hampstead, London. She was the daughter of Noel Carrington – a publisher of Puffin Books, author and brother to Dora Carrington. Showing an early talent for painting, she attended Cedric Morris’s Benton End art school in Suffolk. In 1948, she went to Paris and studied under Fernand Leger. From 1949-52, she attended Central St Martins, London, where her tutors were Keith Vaughan, William Roberts, and Louis Le Broque.

Whilst there, she was awarded the Queen’s Scholarship, which allowed another year of study, and an invitation to exhibit as one of six Young Contemporaries at the ICA in 1953.

Her marriage, in 1953, took her to Africa, but with the divorce that followed she returned to London, and set up a studio in Notting Hill Gate in 1958. This allowed her to build towards her first solo exhibition at the Establishment Gallery, Soho, in 1962.

In 1966, she married again to artist and film director, Christopher Mason. Inspired by Mason’s film on Alfred Wallis, Joanna adopted the pseudonym Reg Pepper to produce paintings in a primitive style. Her identity was only later revealed in 1981.

Throughout the 1960’s, Joanna started to spend more time in France. In the 1990’s, she settled full time in St. Savin, France.  From the 1980’s, exhibitions in London and France became regular events, and her work keenly collected by both public and private collectors.

Her last Solo Exhibition was held at Thackeray Gallery in 1999. Shortly after that, Joanna discovered she had cancer, which ultimately took her life in 2003. All the paintings she had created since the 1999 show were then exhibited at Thackeray Gallery in a Memorial Retrospective in 2005.

The Thackeray Gallery has exhibited Joanna Carrington throughout her career, and we continue to work exclusively with her Estate, as well as dealing privately in her work.