Marion Mitchell was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil and spent her early years in the United States before moving to London in 1908. She enrolled in the Brook Green school of Leon Underwood in April 1923. On a visit to Paris she was taught the use of the wood-engraving tool, the velo or multiple tool, by the artist Dimitri Galanis and was the first to introduce it to Underwood and the members of his school in Girdlers Road. She was a founder member and the first Secretary of the English Wood Engraving Society which held its first exhibition in December 1925 at the Saint George’s Gallery. Ref: James Hamilton: Wood Engraving & the Woodcut in Britain c.1890-1990. Pub. Barry & Jenkins. 1994.