Nancy Wynne-Jones

Nancy Wynne-Jones (10 December 1922 – 9 November 2006) was a Welsh and Irish artist.

Life Mary Esperance ("Nancy") Wynne-Jones was born in December 1922 in Penmaenucha in Wales to landowner Charles Llewellyn Wynne-Jones and Sybil Mary Gella Scott. The family spent half the year in Wales and half the year in Thornhill, Stalbridge, Dorset. She had two brothers, Andrew and Ronald ("Polly") both of whom died in Africa during World War II.

Wynne-Jones was educated at home. Her skill in art led to her getting lessons in Sherborne from a children's book illustrator. Her music was encouraged by the family doctor and she began to compose and study the violin, receiving lessons in Bournemouth with the first violinist of the symphony orchestra. After the start of the Second World War, she continued in Aberystwyth. Wynne-Jones went on to study the violin and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London (1940–43). While in London she also served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse until 1943 and later as a draughtswoman at the Ordnance Survey.

After the War Wynne-Jones purchased and managed a bookshop on the King's Road in Chelsea, but it was not a financial success. She returned to painting, studying at the Heatherley School of Fine Art, London from 1951 to 1952 and the Chelsea School of Art from 1952–1955. She travelled extensively through Portugal and Italy painting landscapes. An interest in completing landscapes in an abstract manner led her to study with Peter Lanyon in St Ives, Cornwall.

Personal life Wynne-Jones had been involved with artist Derek Middleton before moving to Cornwall. There she had become romantically involved with Graham who was in an open marriage, however, it was the death of her mentor Lanyon which devastated her. She met the sculptor Fallon through their mutual friend O'Malley. Fallon had arrived in Cornwall ostensibly to meet Lanyon. They married in 1966. Their honeymoon in Provance was immortalised in expressionist paintings done by Wynne-Jones. The couple adopted a boy and a girl, siblings, John and Bridget. In 1972 she moved with her family to Kinsale, County Cork. It was in the area around here that a number of her paintings were created. Later she painted the mountain visible from her Wicklow home after the family moved in the late 1980s. She moved to Ballard House, near Rathdrum, County Wicklow in 1987. She died in 2006 and was buried in Ballinatone (Church of Ireland), Rathdrum.