My son-in-law’s mother, Julia Heseltine, who has died aged 89, was an artist whose portraiture accompanied a successful, lifelong career producing paintings in a variety of styles. Her subjects included Joan Plowright and Ted Hughes, as well as coastal and rural scenes. Her work has appeared in the Royal Academy and many regional galleries.
Julia was born in St Pancras, London, to Guy Heseltine, an army colonel, and Anna Zinkeisen. Anna and her sister, Julia’s aunt, Doris, were hugely productive and often fashionable artists, particularly in the 1920s and 30s but also for decades after that. They worked in illustration, portraiture, design, fashion, film and theatre. As a young girl, Julia helped her mother in the studio, the more so when expelled from Heathfield school, in Ascot, Berkshire, aged 14. She went to the Chelsea School of Art, on to Byam Shaw School of Art and, finally, to the Royal Academy Schools. While at the RA (1952-57) she picked up a silver medal from the Paris Salon. It was also where she met the sculptor Anthony Weller, with whom she subsequently shared a studio. They were married in 1962.
