My friend Hermione Carline, who has died aged 74, came from a long line of artists stretching back to the 19th century. But although she was an artist almost from birth, making just the sort of animal drawings and miniature books that remain a family tradition, she resisted following in the footsteps of her parents, the painters Richard Carline and Nancy Carline (nee Higgins), and began her career as a textile designer.
Born in London, Hermione grew up in Hampstead, in a house filled with old books, old furniture and old paintings by generations of Carlines. It was “more like a museum than a house,” she said, and it left her “craving the modern world”. After Hampstead school for girls, she studied fine art at Camberwell School of Art, followed by an MA in textile design at the Royal College of Art from 1974 to 1977.
