Born in India in 1879, Madeline Rachel Wells RBA (1879–1959) studied firstly at Westminster School of Art, under William Mouat Loudan, before studying at London School of Art under Sir Frank Brangwyn RA RWS RBA (1867–1956), who had a profound influence on her work. In 1915, she became a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and in 1923 she was elected a member of the Society of Women Artists. Wells exhibited widely over a period of more than thirty years, including at the Grosvenor Gallery, the Royal Academy, and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.
She married Robert Douglas Wells (1875–1963), an architect, who had been her fellow student at London School of Art. Robert Wells had studied at architecture at Cambridge and worked on archaeological excavations in Crete. Together, they travelled extensively in France, Spain and the Mediterranean, and both artists recorded and were inspired by the architecture around them. In London, in the 1920s, the couple lived at St Albans Studios in Kensington. From 1939 onwards they lived at 30 Palace Gardens Terrace.
