painter, was born in Maitland (NSW) on 8 December 1911. Her early years were spent in Queensland, then at Bellevue Hill and Warrawee in Sydney. Her uncle, Duncan Goldfinch (1888-1960), was a landscape watercolourist who encouraged Nancy with gifts of paint and brushes. Her first lessons were from a family friend, the artist Marjorie Arnold . Originally she was taught to paint by producing tiny pencil drawings and filling them in with watercolour, but at secondary school had lessons from Eirene Mort who suggested study with Will Ashton painting en plein air . She also had lessons at the Royal Art Society of NSW with Sydney Long and later attended Dattilo Rubbo’s school where she was exposed to reproductions of modern art by Cézanne and Van Gogh.

Nancy made short trips to Ceylon in 1930 and to Fiji in 1939. In 1933 she went to England for three years. Armed with letters of introduction from Will Ashton, she sought advice on courses of study in London from the Director of the National Gallery and the artist Charles Bryant and decided on the Chelsea Art School. She travelled to Paris for six weeks and encountered the work of many modern painters. She went on a summer school to Salisbury, worked with the Cornish artist Lamorna Birch, and visited Bruges alone, staying in a convent and spending each day at her easel painting in the street. Her work was shown with the Royal Society of British Artists and she exhibited at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1935.

After returning to Sydney, Nancy held an exhibition at Macquarie Galleries in 1935, including oil and watercolour landscapes of England and Bruges. In 1940 she held an exhibition of works painted in Sydney and Fiji at the Macquarie Galleries, which was opened by Rubbo. She sold a large number of these paintings and received favourable critical comment in the press. Nancy worked from a studio in Bond Street and would often paint outdoors on her portable easel. Occasionally, she went to drawing classes with her close friends Jean Bellette , Thea Proctor and Rachel Roxburgh at Proctor’s studio in Pitt Street. At the beginning of the war she left her studio, studied mechanical drawing and was seconded to the NSW Ministry of Munitions’ Board of Area Management. There she met her husband, Jack Mannix, later the artistic director of PACT Theatre. They had three children.

Nancy lived in Hunters Hill from 1951, at which time she became interested in abstract art. She studied at the Mary White School and later worked with John Olsen at the Bakery School; she was also influenced by Janet Dawson. She began to paint in acrylics in 1968 and made collages in the 1970s. Her work was highly commended in the Muswellbrook Art Prize and she has won a number of competitions, including the Hunters Hill Art Prize three times. Solo exhibitions were held in 1992 at the Macquarie Galleries and in 1994 at the Newcastle Region Art Gallery.

Writers:

Cole, Johanna

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011