WATERCOLOUR artist Janet Duncan died at her home with her family beside her on Tuesday following a long fight with breast cancer. She was 65.
Janet was born in Marlow but lived and worked in Station Road, Shiplake, for 40 years.
The Thames and the Chiltern countryside had a hold on her and her landscapes reflected the changing seasons and many moods of the river.
From her early schooldays her desire to draw and paint placed the visual arts above all other ambitions. She entered the four-year diploma course in fine art at High Wycombe College of Art, winning the Bucks Art Scholarship and gaining her national diploma.
Janet had 28 one-woman shows and exhibited her work with the Royal Institute, the Royal Watercolour Society, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Stewards, the Henley Festival and Oxfordshire Art Week. She was awarded the Matt Bruce Memorial Award for outstanding use of colour and light on paper in the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours.
She was married to sculptor Clive Duncan for 40 years. Her daughter Catharine is in the performing arts and son Alexander is a painter and art lecturer. She was a devoted wife and mother and a grandmother to Samuel and Joseph.
Janet’s passion for the arts was all-consuming but she always left room for friends and acquaintances and often spoke of being blessed through her long-lasting friendships. She was a remarkably talented and sensitive artist, appreciating everything in its own time and believing that the fruits of the seasons should be the only arbiter of change.
Janet leaves a devoted family who honour her memory and are fortunate enough to be surrounded by her paintings, as well as her love.
Her funeral will be at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Shiplake next , but donations to the Breast Cancer Campaign, c/o Tomalin and Son, 38, Reading Road, Henley, RG9 1AG.
Published on 08 February 2010
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