Meraud Guinness
British painter
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Meraud Michelle Wemyss Guinness also known as Meraud Guevara (24 June 1904 – 6 May 1993) was a British painter, writer and poet. She lived most of her life in France, having settled there with her husband, Álvaro Guevara, from whom she was later separated.
Life
She was born Meraud Michelle Wemyss Guinness in London on 24 June 1904 a member of the famous and wealthy Guinness family as daughter of Benjamin Seymour Guinness, a rich Anglo-Irish businessman and financier (later also a Prince in the Italian nobility). She was the older sister of Loel Guinness.
Aged 19 she began studies at Slade School of Art in London and studied under Henry Tonks.[1] From 1926 to 1927 she studied in New York under the sculptor Alexander Archipenko. During her time in New York she also wrote for Vogue magazine. She next moved to Paris, France and studied at both the Académie Julian and Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Francis Picabia and Pierre Tal-Coat.
Although earlier connected romantically to Christopher Wood, also sitting for him, she ultimately married Chilean painter Álvaro Guevara in 1929 and spent most of her life in the south of France, in Aix-en-Provence near him, but not with him, their marriage crumbling after the birth of their daughter Alladine Guevara in 1931.
In 1943, Guinness' work was included in Peggy Guggenheim's show Exhibition by 31 Women at the Art of This Century gallery in New York.[2]
The summer of 1950 at a 'Coming Out' party at 12 Rue de Poitiers, Paris - the flat of the Guinness family - saw Guiness, her Aunt Tanis and Lady Diana Cooper act as hostesses. The party was organised by her brother Loel whose wife, Lady Isabel Manners, was the niece of Lady Diana Cooper. Cecil Beaton assisted by Guiness, undertook decorations at the home for the occasion.[3]
She died in Paris on 6 May 1993.[4]