In 1995, when she was 22, Rachel Heller had her first solo show, at the John Jones Art Centre in London. The exhibition sold out. This was not her first success, nor would it be her last. In 1986, when Heller was 13, a selection of her drawings was shown to the television grandee Jeremy Isaacs, who promptly bought one. In 2006, her figure study Lady Sleeping in Bed won the Hugh Casson drawing prize at the Royal Academy’s annual Summer Exhibition. In 2015, Heller’s work was included in an exhibition at the Senator Group’s showroom in New York.
It is not difficult to see the reasons for her success. Heller, who has died of sepsis aged 49, had a particular bent for drawing, notably in pastel and chalk. Her range was considerable, from quick, deft Hockneyish works such as Flowers Still Life (2016) to dense, compacted figure studies such as Sleeping Woman (2006) and Stand Prose (2011).
