Singing Softly to the Light: The Biography of Mary Louise Coulouris

Mary Louise Coulouris was born in New York and raised in Hollywood. Her father was the Anglo-Greek actor, George Coulouris who was part of the Orson Welles’ Studio and starred in Citizen Kane.After completing her school education in London, she enrolled at the Slade School of Art, then under the directorship of the legendary Sir William Coldstream. Among her tutors were E. H. Gombrich and Sir Anthony Blunt. She was taught etching in Paris by William Hayter at the renowned ‘Atelier17’. Among the first to buy her colourful work were the actor Vincent Price and the writer John Steinbeck. Her work has also been purchased by several public collections, including the Ashmolean Museum, the Nuffield Trust, the joint Houses of Parliament, the Biblioteque Nationale de France and the New York Public Library.She worked in many media, including oils watercolours, murals, rugs and mosaics as well as print making. She moved to Scotland with her husband and undertook many commissions for oil paintings and public murals.A succession of Greek scholarships took her to Athens where she had a number of exhibitions and made a home with her husband Gordon Wallace on the island of Hydra.