Diana Low (1911-1975)

Dec 1, 2025
2 min read

Diana Low Painting, Grandparents on the Beach, Oil Painting — ‘Grandparents on the Beach’ Oil on board, Quita Collard bequest 1978. Rye Art Gallery Permanent Collection

Diana Low (1911 - 1975) was a well-known painter in oils and pastels as well as a talented printmaker. Her compositions mainly landscapes, Sussex beach Scenes included figurative subjects and still life had a unique and distinctive colour palette.

Diana studied art in Paris and at the Slade School in London, her tutors included Randolf Schwabe and Sir William Nicholson. As a young oil painter Diana was heavily influenced by Nicholson, a family friend with whom she had a short-lived affair after leaving school. This liaison is immortalised in his beautiful portrait of her in oil on canvas painted in 1933. Her painting of him from 1932 is less appealing but brilliantly executed featuring an older man in slippers slumped sleeping on his chesterfield sofa.

Diana Low, Oil Paintings, portrait, paintings — William Nicholson, ‘Portrait of Diana Low - oil on canvas 1933. Diana Low, ‘Portrait of William Nicholson’ - oil on canvas 1932

Diana continued to paint, exhibiting at Royal Academy Summer shows, the New English Arts club and The Royal Society of British artists. For thirty years, married to R. Clissold Tuely, she lived at Underhill Farm Wittersham. Remaining actively involved in the local arts scene she included her work in Rye Society of Artists annual shows. Her friends and artist connections at Rye Art Gallery were many and numerous. After her death in 1975, Rye Art Gallery staged a major retrospective exhibition of her works.

Diana found many subjects for her oil paintings drawing inspiration from her local surroundings, experimenting as well with beautiful designs on fabrics and paper. She was an accomplished and talented artist but commercial success like so many women of her time proved elusive.

Diana Low il Painting, Camber Sands — ‘A Road Near the Sea’ Oil on board, Quita Collard bequest 1978, Rye Art Gallery permanent collection

We have recently added to our permanent collection of Diana Low’s work, with two oils “Donkeys on the Beach” was donated to the gallery by Julia Cooper in memory of her daughter Stephanie Cooper who loved to play on Camber Sands. And “Dinner in Soho” (1968) was acquired for the collection in January 2025.

Interestingly, “Dinner in Soho” (1968) returns to the gallery after it was originally featured as a loan from Dennis Townsend at Diana's major retrospective exhibition called 'The Figure on the Beach' curated by Miranda Leonard and showcased in the Stormont Studio at Rye Art Gallery during June 1992.