May Stead. C.1930
May Stead (nee Greening) was born on May 21st, 1871 in Bradford. She was the daughter of Charles Greening, a master printer, who works were at Albion Place, Bradford. She was one of six children, with three older and a younger brother, and a younger sister. After her initial elementary education she completed her studies at the Salts School in Shipley, which was a mixed High School. She showed an aptitude for art and attended art lessons at the nearby Saltaire School of Art, where she was encourage to pursue a career in art.
After leaving school she started as an art student at Saltaire Art School, where she met Fred Stead, who had recently been appointed as a tutor and would become her future husband. At Saltaire Art School she applied to study at the National Art Training School (later Royal College of Art) in London, and was accepted. She also became engaged to Fred Stead.
In London she won bronze and silver medals for her watercolours and the Art School purchased works by her for their collection. She qualified as an art teacher and after leaving London she returned to Yorkshire, where she taught art at Bradford Girls’ Grammar School and married Fred Stead in 1896. They lived initially at Ivy Road, Shipley, then moved to a larger house at Norwood House, Baildon Green (see below), They raised three children, although Samuel (Sam), the eldest, was killed in World War One. May and Fred later moved to Ghyllwood Drive, Bingley, their final home.
Norwood, Baildon Green.
May initially painted landscapes and flowers, but she began to specialise in miniature portraits in watercolour, as this differentiated her from Fred’s work and allowed her to paint from home and around her domestic and child-rearing responsibilities; examples of her miniature portrait art are shown below. She made careful drawings of the sitter and then with the aid of a magnifying glass worked in watercolour on the final portrait.
Her work was exhibited at shows of the Royal Academy, Society of Women Artists, Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, Royal Society of Miniature Painters, and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
In 1931 she was invited by the Royal British Colonial Society of Artists to contribute two of her miniature portraits, including one of her husband, Fred, to a Royal British Colonial Society of Artists exhibition in Buenos Aires.
Above is a portrait by May Stead of her younger brother, Oliver, signed ‘May Greening Stead’ and dated 1939. (With thanks to Alister Ruddick for allowing me to use the image).
After Fred Stead died in 1940, May helped organise a memorial exhibition of his work at Cartwright Hall in Bradford.
In the early 1950s she went to Essex to live with her married daughter and her family. Her eyesight gradually deteriorated and she ceased to paint and died at Romford in the London Borough of Havering in 1958.
(With thanks to Stephen Long for t he biographical detail of May Stead’s life and for allowing me to use most of the images shown above.)