NEN Gallery

Michèle Franklin, Banished, 1985
Watercolour

Michèle was born in Vermont, USA, in 1958, the second daughter of a British-Jewish physicist father and an African-American teacher mother. As a young child Michèle drew all the time and by the age of five had determined to be an artist. Her family moved to England in 1966 and Michele studied painting and sculpture at Camberwell in London, where she mainly produced figurative works, including expressive portraits and self-portraits. She continued her studies in Italy before returning to England where she worked part-time, teaching art therapy, drawing, painting and sculpture, for almost ten years.

Ben Uri bought Michèle’s watercolour “Banished” in 1985, her first entry into a public collection. Since then she has exhibited regularly – at the Barbican Centre, the Royal Academy Summer Show, the Whitechapel, the Mall Galleries and others. Her work is largely figurative, based on her own life experiences and family or inspired by events, such as the Holocaust. More recently she has also worked on still lives. She works from photographs as well as models in both oils and charcoal.

Examples of works by Michéle Franklin:
Courtesy of the artist

Relief
Painting
30 x 36cm

Dreamchild
Painting
55 x 45cm