About the artist

Maria Bell-Salter is a London based artist. She paints in oils on canvas or linen with the spirit of plein-air painting at the heart of her work. Self-taught as an artist, she has an MA in French and an MA in the history of Art with a focus on the French Impressionists. It was this path that led her to turn to painting and develop her own style, inspired by a desire to convey the beauty, light and positivity in nature. She has painted since the mid 1990’s, exhibiting in the United States then moving her studio to Paris, showing with galleries on the prestigious Rue de Seine and Avenue Matignon before returning to London and her English roots.

Maria’s exuberant paintings of landscapes and herbaceous borders feature in numerous private collections in the UK and internationally, including the United States, France and the Far East. Commissions also form a large part of her practice.

In addition to her work as a practicing artist, Maria is co-founder, Trustee and Chair of ARTscapades; and a Trustee and Steering Committee Chair of the U.K. Friends of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA).

Solo Exhibitions

2024
Garden Museum, London

2023
Gallery Eight, London

2013
Mall Galleries, London

2009 
ING Bank, London

2007 
ING Bank, London

2001 
Galerie de Suede, Nice

1998 
Galerie Heraud, Ave. Matignon, Paris

1996 
Galerie Heraud, Ave. Matignon, Paris

1994
Botanical Gardens, Memphis

1994
Palmer Gallery, Hot Springs

1993
Malcolm Innes Gallery, London

1992 
Botanical Gardens, Memphis

Selected group
Exhibitions

2000
Galerie Heraud, Ave. Matignon, Paris
Paris Art Galerie, Rue de Seine, Paris

1999 
Salon des Independants, Paris 
Paris Art Galerie, Rue de Seine, Paris

1997
Galerie Heraud, Ave. Matignon, Paris

1995 
Galerie Heraud, Ave. Matignon, Paris
Bell Gallery, Memphis
Heinley Fine Arts, Boston

1994 
Cadogan Gallery, Draycott Ave, London

1993 
Richmond Gallery, Cork St, London

Reviews

This is gentle yet exuberant art, with colours that sing and that would bring a sense of summer to the viewer on even the coldest day. There is definitely a hint of the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists here, combined with a 21st-century sensibility that tells us that these images are very much of our own moment. Frances Follin, Cassone Magazine.

Maria Bell-Salter’s natural grace and gentleness of spirit overflows into her paintings. Her work is free of the harshness and sometimes cynicism that pervades many contemporary art works. (…) Her choice of the typical square canvas, favoured by Monet, lifts these paintings out of the realm of ‘landscape’ to something more immediate and tangible. 
Hilary H. Guise, Art historian and critic, London.

...Elle renouvelle la tradition impressioniste, à l’aide d’une technique toute personnelle où la coloure est incandescante. Ses huiles sur toiles sont exaltantes, tant elles chantent la verdoyance de la nature et sa generosite naturelle.
Patricia Trojman, Le Journal de Nice.

….She renews the Impressionist tradition by means of a personal style in which colour is luminous. Her paintings are exalting and proclaim the verdance and bounty of nature.

A travers un jeu subtil de touches, de couleurs et de lumières Bell-Salter interprete le visible à sa facon; et sa transposition, pleine de ferveur et de poésie, vient témoigner une nouvelle fois de la délicatesse de son écriture.
Le Courrier des Galleries, Paris.

In a subtle game of brushwork, colour and light, Bell-Salter interprets the visible in her own way. This translation, filled with fervour and poetry, testifies once again to the sensitivity of her touch.