She became a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors and her lead bust of her husband and fellow sculptor, Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler, remains in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.
This work represents one of her infrequent returns to painting. She shows her family seated around a dining table. Between Muriel and Charles sit their two children Robin and Carol. While she has depicted her husband in his artist’s smock, she has shown herself out of working clothes, in a long red dress.
It is included in Modern British Women, an ongoing exhibition at the Fine Art Society devoted to both celebrated and lesser-known female artists who worked during the 20th century. Among the 14 artists represented in the exhibition are Winifred Nicholson, Elisabeth Frink, Mary Potter and Anne Redpath, with prices ranging from £10,000-150,000.
Wheeler’s oil on panel measures 22 x 2ft 4in (55 x 71cm) and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1933.
