Tessa Newcomb

British b 1955

Born in Suffolk, Tessa Newcomb started painting at an early age using the offcuts of board and card discarded by her mother, the renowned painter Mary Newcomb. In this way, she developed the knack of painting on long thin shapes, something that still features in her work. She studied at Norwich School of Art, 1972-3, and gained an honours degree from Bath Academy of Art, 1976, doing a year's advanced printmaking at Wimbledon School of Art, 1977.

Tessa Newcomb began painting on furniture, boxes and other three-dimensional wooden objects, painting with oils directly onto the surface of the wood. She works inspired by ‘slow, atmospheric films, poetry, going places and rail journeys. Scenes of the Suffolk countryside and coastline also dominate her work. Her Suffolk is a place of odd encounters an unkempt land and seascapes featuring working figures, dogs, boats, churchyards and allotments all portrayed in her distinctive style.

Her work is held in many public collections including: Bradford Metropolitan Museum; Whitworth Art gallery, Manchester; Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Collection, London; Strawberry Hill College; Ocean and Transport plc

Exhibitions Include:

Royal Academy; The Annexe Gallery, London; Galerie Ploemp, Oulde Delft, Netherlands; Fulham Fine Art, London; The School House, Wighton, Norfolk; Christopher Hull Gallery, London; Denis Taplin, Suffolk; Cork Brick Gallery, Bungay, Suffolk; Primavera, Cambridge; Chappel Galleries, Colchester, Essex; Wyken Hall, Suffolk; Cane Kalman Gallery, London;

She has completed jacket illustrations for Julia Blackburn's Daisy In The Desert and the paperback of The Emperor's Last Island, both in 1994.

Tessa lives at Wenhaston, Suffolk with her partner Telfer Stokes who is the artist son of Margaret Mellis.