Nancy Tichborne | |
---|---|
Born | Nancy Margaret Keedwell 27 August 1942 Levin, New Zealand |
Died | 10 February 2023 Akaroa, New Zealand | (aged 80)
Spouse |
Bryan Tichborne (m. 1965) |
Children | 3 |
Relatives | Helen Leach (sister) |
Nancy Margaret Tichborne (née Keedwell; 27 August 1942 – 10 February 2023) was a New Zealand watercolour artist.[1] She specialised in paintings of flowers; her work has appeared on calendars, diaries, cards and postage stamps in New Zealand and internationally.[2][3]
Tichborne was born in Levin on 27 August 1942 to Peggy (née Watkins) and Harvey Keedwell,[4] and grew up in Hāwera, in the North Island of New Zealand.[1] She was the second of three daughters; her sisters were Mary Browne, a cookbook writer, and the food anthropologist Helen Leach.[1] In 1952, the family moved to Dunedin and Tichborne attended Otago Girls' High School.[5] On leaving high school, she went to London on a scholarship and studied art at St Martin's School of Art from 1960 to 1962.[1][4] In 1964, she returned to Dunedin for a short time and her work was included in an exhibition there.[5] She then went on to work in Hong Kong as a fashion illustrator for the South China Morning Post and a fashion designer for an American fashion house between 1964 and 1965, before spending the next five years in England and Wales.[1][5]
In 1970, Tichborne returned to New Zealand and settled in Rotorua. She worked part-time as an art teacher and collaborated with her sisters Helen Leach and Mary Browne on a series of cookbooks, providing the watercolour artwork for them.[1] In 1984, Tichborne and her husband Bryan founded the New Zealand Calendar Company, and started producing calendars with a New Zealand focus.[1][5] Their first calendar featured fishing flies, and later titles featured flowers and cats.[1] Their 39th and last calendar was produced in 2010.[5]
In 1997, Tichborne designed a series of postage stamps and a first day cover for New Zealand Post depicting vineyards of New Zealand.[6] Her artwork was also used on stamps of Bhutan and the Pitcairn Islands.[5] In the 1990s, Tichborne released a series of DVDs on watercolour technique.[7]
In 2007, Tichborne was appointed patron of Watercolour New Zealand.[1][8] She remained in that position for 12 years.[5]
In 1963, Tichborne met Bryan Tichborne—at that time a soldier undertaking officer training at Sandhurst—in Killarney, Ireland, and the couple married in Hong Kong in 1965.[5] They had three sons.[1] In 1994, the couple moved to a property at French Farm, near Akaroa in Canterbury. Tichborne established a garden there that in 2011 was designated a Garden of Significance by the New Zealand Gardens Trust.[1] The couple subsequently moved to a smaller property in Akaroa.[2]
Tichborne died at her home in Akaroa on 10 February 2023, at the age of 80.[5][9]