Background
Carline was born in London, to a British father and an Australian mother. Her father, Douglas Higgins, was the co-founder of the Jones & Higgins store in Peckham.
Carline was born in London, to a British father and an Australian mother. Her father, Douglas Higgins, was the co-founder of the Jones & Higgins store in Peckham.
She studied at the Slade School of Art and worked at the Sadlers Wells Ballet and later attended the stage design course at the Slade run by Vladimir Polunin.
Foreign two seasons, from 1933, Carline worked, on an unpaid basis, in the costume department at the Sadlers wells ballet. Among the artists working there was Vladimir and Elizabeth Polunin who were producing and designing opera and ballet sets for the company. Vladimir Polunin encouraged her to take the course he was teaching in stage design at the Slade and Carline returned to the art school.
Richard Carline was the youngest of the five children born to the artist George Francis Carline and Anne Smith (1862–1945).
Other artists who were regularly at the Carline family home in Hampstead included Henry Lamb, Paul Nash, John Nash, Gilbert Spencer and Mark Gertler. Nancy Carline"s 1946 painting Supper on the Terrace shows the Carline family of artists at their Pond Street home in Hampstead.
Among her war-time paintings were Soho in War-time and a depiction of the celebrations at the end of the conflict in Europe, VE Night. She remained an advocate of art education throughout her life.
The couple served as art examiners for the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate from 1955 to 1974 and travelled extensively in Asia and Africa in that role.They also painted in Mexico and Venice and worked together on a book, Paint they Must, on art education.
Nancy Carline exhibited regularly with the Royal Academy, the London Group during the 1930s, the New English Art Club and the Artists" International Association. Carline"s work featured in a number of Carline family exhibitions including The Carline Family in 1977 at the Leicester Galleries in London and The Spencers and the Carlines which toured in 1980. After Richard died in 1980, she moved from Hampsted to Oxford where she continued to paint until her death in 2004.
A retrospective of her life"s work was held at the Camden Arts Centre and she was made an Honorary Life-Member of the NEAC in 1989.