Accession Code: wu0364w Title: Mules in Tuscany Date completed: 1956 Medium: Painting Material: Oil Height (mm): 457 Width (mm): 567 Depth (mm): n/a Inscription: Signed Fedden 1956 Location Name: Westwood Location Description: Teaching Centre Location Floor: 0

© the Artist’s Estate. All Rights Reserved 2019/ Bridgeman Images

This painting was purchased for Coventry College of Education from the Pictures for Schools Exhibition. In post-war Britain, art education was held to be an important part of a child's development and schools and colleges were actively encouraged to collect original works of art so that children and students could explore the ways in which they had been made.

Travel in Europe opened up to more people in the late 1950s, beguiled by new travel writing and, indeed by the cookery books of Elizabeth David that introduced a sense of the Mediterranean to the United Kingdom. Here, Mary Fedden deploys reds and oranges in a non-naturalistic way to suggest the heat of Tuscany. She depicts a traditional way of life: one that would be of interest to tourists.