User:S.curnow/sandbox

Ursula Margery Bullard 1923 -1989 (née Cooke a.k.a Ursula Margery Curnow)
Ursula Bullard was a New Zealand artist who worked with a number of media which included oils, water colours, lithographs, charcoal on paper, pen and ink on paper and sculptures. She painted landscapes, interiors, still life and portraits amongst other subjects. She also produced sculptures. Her artistic career extended from c.1940 to1989.

Early Life
The third child of Ernest and Katherine Cooke, she was born in Lincoln, New Zealand on November 5 1923. Her childhood years revolved around a life at Lincoln where her father was the local doctor. She had her primary schooling at home, with a governess, before going to school at Rangi Ruru Girls’ School where, against her parents wishes, she sat and passed Matric gaining Distinctions in Latin and English.

Ernest Cooke her father had served as a surgeon in the Royal Navy in the First World War. Based in England, he met Kitty (Casson), whose family had a drapery business in Richmond, Surrey. They were married, and Ernest, on their return to New Zealand, took over the Lincoln practice left vacant by the death of his father.

At the age of eight she became a type 1 diabetic, a condition that had just become treatable several years before (1922) with the use of insulin, injected on a daily basis. In a less medically enlightened household, she would probably have been treated as an invalid at that time. As it was, she was allowed to lead an outwardly normal life. She realised, however, that her parents had reservations about her physical and intellectual stamina, and she resented that.

Ursula had an unreasonable inferiority complex then and for many years afterwards about her own sporting ability vis-à-vis Janet, her sister, (who was a good horsewoman and swimmer). The Cookes moved to Christchurch in the late thirties.

Discovering her talent
The Canterbury School of Art developed a natural talent in her - although she would have preferred a full-time university degree course. In that wartime period, she was in the female team, which included people like Mary Glover, delivering the morning milk with a horsedrawn float around the streets of Merivale; she was "doing her bit" but also proving that she could take it physically. Whilst at Canterbury she became wardrobe mistress, set designer and occasional actor in the touring Ngaio Marsh theatrical productions. She developed a lifelong friendship with Dick Lovell-Smith, a fellow artist, during this period.

Ursula met Anthony Curnow, a childhood friend from Lincoln, (this was in large measure Allen Curnow’s doing), and they were married by Tremayne Curnow at St Mary's, Merivale in 1948. Ursula was determined to go to England, and had already saved the money for her passage to London. It was an absence of seven and a half years. During this time she attended classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, receiving tuition in life drawing from Anthony Gross and painting from Mervyn Peake.

In October 1955 Ursula moved back to Wellington with her husband who had secured a job with the Publicity Division, a centralised government information service. Here they lived at 10 Karepa Street, Brooklyn.

In January 1957 she moved to Bangkok, accompanying her husband who had been made Deputy Director of Public relations at SEATO. When they first arrived in Bangkok they were housed at the Erawan Hotel, where coincidentally they met Peter Townsend and Cecil Beaton. In 1959 she moved to Kuala Lumpur as her husband took up a position with the New Zealand High Commission as a Press Officer. This period of residence in South-East Asia influenced her painting, and she had the opportunity to witness first-hand the temples and art of that region including a visit to Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom in Cambodia where she did some wax rubbings of the stone reliefs.

In 1960 she divorced Anthony Curnow and after a liaison with Brian Mason, an old boyfriend from her university days, in New York went to live in England, accompanied by her son Simon, then aged 6, after returning to Malaya briefly. She travelled to London by ship from Port Swettenham to Tilbury, taking up residence in St. John’s Wood for a period of some months before moving to Tilbury-juxta-Clare in north Essex where she dedicated herself to bringing up her son. During this time she also maintained contact with a painting friend, Enslin du Plessis (a member of the London Group), whom she had met while living in London in the 1950s.

She met up again with Teddy (Sir Edward) Bullard whom she had encountered on a trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia whilst living in South-East Asia. She moved to Sewell’s Farm in Belchamp Otten in 1969 and married Teddy in 1977(?), subsequently moving to La Jolla in California, upon Teddy’s retirement from the Geophysics Department at Cambridge University.

After Teddy’s death in 1980 she moved back to New Zealand in 1985, initially taking up residence at 40 Prospect Terrace in Mount Eden, and then moving to 27 Ewington Avenue, Mount Eden, where she had a property built in the grounds of her son Simon and his wife Hilary’s property. There she remained until her death in 1989.

During her periods of residence in California and New Zealand, in the latter stages of her life, she took up painting and drawing seriously once more.

Education

 * 1936? - 1940       Rangi Ruru Girls’ School, Christchurch.
 * 1941 – 1944        Canterbury University College School of Art, Christchurch.
 * 1948 – 1954        Central School of Arts and Crafts, London.
 * 1976 – 1978        Studied sculpture with Shirley Lichtman, San Diego, California.

Exhibitions

 * 1945 – 1947        Canterbury Society of Arts.
 * 1948 – 1954        New Zealand House, London.
 * 1948 – 1954        Redfern Gallery, London.
 * 1956 – 1960        Silpakorn Fine Arts Academy, Bangkok.
 * 1980                   Meehan Gallery, La Jolla, California.
 * 1978 – 1980        San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, California.
 * 1985                   La Jolla Art Association, La Jolla California (3 person show).

Awards

 * 1940s        Various awards at the Canterbury Fine Arts School.
 * 1958          Bronze medal, Silpakorn Fine Arts Academy, Bangkok, Thailand for best drawing in Thailand.
 * 1984          Honourable Mention, Annual Awards Show, La Jolla Art Association.