Nancy Carline

Nancy Carline was born Nancy Higgins in London on 30 November 1909. From 1929 to 1932 she studied at the Slade School, where her principal teachers were Henry Tonks and Allan Gwynne-Jones. After meeting the designer Vladimir Polunin, Carline returned to the Slade to attend his theatre design course from 1934 to 1935. In 1934 she met the painter Richard Carline, who she later married, so entering the extensive circle of artists to which he belonged. Richard Carline subsequently became a prominent exhibition organiser as well as a painter and both he and Nancy were for many years Art Examiners for the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate. The Carlines had two children. Though the majority of Nancy Carline's works are landscapes, these often include a figure and she also paints portraits, figure groups in domestic settings and biblical and classical subjects. She exhibited with the London Group during the 1930s and from 1957 to 1959, was included in Artists International Association exhibitions during the war, including the 1943 For Liberty Exhibition, and showed at the Wildenstein Gallery in 1946. Carline showed at the Royal Academy from the 1960s to the 1980s and at the New English art Club, of which she was made an Honorary Life-Member in 1989. Her work has been included in a number of exhibitions dedicated to the work of the Carline and Spencer families. The Carlines lived in Hampstead until Richard's death in 1980, after which Nancy moved to Oxford.

Chris Stephens
November 1997