British painter Vézelay was neglected and ignored by the British art establishment for most of her long life, but she can claim to be Britain's first abstract artist. She was born Margery Watson-Williams in Bristol in 1892, and changed her name when she went to live and work in Paris in 1926. Her studio was a street away from Picasso's, and she was part of the group of artists who contributed to the revolution in modern art of the 1920s.