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Jane Percival
Jane Mary Percival ARCA (28 May 1935 - 18 June 2016) was a British artist.

Percival was born on 28th May 1935 in Harrow, Middlesex to Edna and Edward Percival. Her father, Edward, was the Managing Director of S and W Berrisford and, during World War II, Chairman of the Sugar Board. Percival spent her childhood in Harrow with her brother, John Percival, until one summers evening in 1944, when they were bombed out, never to return to that house again. The family were re-housed in Hertfordshire where Percival attended St Albans High School For Girls.

When she was eighteen Jane went on to the Chelsea School of Art followed by an invitation to join the Royal College of Art in 1957. After seven years of study and having been awarded the Moreland Lewis Travel Scholarship, jane went to live and paint in Portugal for a year. Jane returned to Nottinghill, London in 1962 Her career over the next ten years included, teaching at Hammersmith School of Art,  at Braintree College of Further Education and at Wormwood Scrubs Prison, as well as designing stage sets for the Mercury Theatre and  book jackets for the Aylesford Review (some of you will remember Jane's dear friend Father Brocard) and other publications. By the time Jane lived in Notting Hill, it had become a place where “beautiful people” made extraordinary things happen. She was in the midst of a group of fascinating hip people: Beat poets, playwrights,  writers and fellow artists - including her future husband Peter. Once, Jane was asked by a friend if she could bring an American folksinger, about to tour in the UK, to join Jane’s dinner party. She said "yes of course"…and in came Bob Dylan, who, charmed by Jane’s warmth and hospitality (and I'm sure by her great beauty) joined in, sang and played guitar..and got stoned with Peter ---

Jane married twice – to playwright Michael Hastings in 1967 and then to Peter Lloyd-Jones in 1973 at Kensington registry Office. The couple then moved from the buzz of Notting Hill to the wilds of Somerset, to raise their three year old daughter, Louisa and give birth to Amy. The family lived in Crossways House: a home that has grown organically over the years, and become its own masterpiece through Jane and Peter. A home filled with friends and family. When Amy and Louisa were old enough, Jane began teaching again, illustrating books, designing stage sets and costumes, and exhibiting her work. Whilst being a dedicated and devoted mother, jane continued to work, going up to London a couple of days a week over a period of seven years in the 1980’s to teach at the Chelsea School of Art. And, of course, throughout, always painting and sketching – documenting her whole life in drawings and paintings. A glowing letter of reference for Jane, written in 1977, by a fellow artist and friend, Michael Brown, included such observations as – ‘Jane Percival is unusually gifted in her ability to communicate with students and they respond to her willingness to become involved in their particular dilemmas’. And – ‘Her painting is warm and tends to be expressionistic. Her paintings are arrived at through a total direct and honest response to her own senses”. Her body of work includes portraits, landscapes and abstracts predominantly in oil. Jane herself wrote of her skills and experience – ‘I am a practising painter, who having trained at Chelsea School of Art, did post graduate Fine Art for three years at the Royal College of Art at the same time as R B Kitaj,(kit-EYE) Adrian Berg,(BURG) Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney, and Pauline Boty. This was a stimulating time and a formative period for me.’