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From: Tom & Claire Clark <>
Subject: [nz] Austen Deans OBE 1915-2011 and relationship to Jane Austen
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 00:50:04 +1300
In-Reply-To: <mailman.224.1319219824.27172.new-zealand@rootsweb.com>


Hi all,

Austen's funeral was held Saturday in Geraldine. There are Tributes to
him in the media and on websites eg
http://www.watercolournewzealand.co.nz/

Watercolour New Zealand Honours Austen Deans
Austen Deans, OBE, one of New Zealand's great painters, passed away in
Christchurch on 18 October 2011 aged 95. He was still actively painting
en plain air and exhibiting. He had lifelong passions for watercolour
painting, mountaineering and the high country of New Zealand. He
combined these in a very successful career as an artist producing a
folio of works that capture the timelessness and beauty of the New
Zealand landscape.

In his works you can feel the warmth of the sun on his back, and the
chill in his face as he faced the mountains capturing the shadows as
they played across the slopes. He used a wide palette of colours to lay
down the ochres and oranges of the tussocks and a spectrum of blues for
snowy faces deepening into shadowy valleys. Working most often in a kilt
and a tam o'shanter, with a well worn easel, he was a familiar landmark
in the high country.

His artworks were on exhibition in Wellington, two weeks ago, at the
annual Watercolour New Zealand exhibition. In 2008 when he was guest
artist at the same exhibition,he held an impromptu demonstration of
watercolour painting with his friend Ben Woollcombe of Peel Forest.
Austen borrowed paints, brushes and paper and stroked the paper,layering
colours to build up washes of the blacks, browns and blues that he used
in his high country landscapes. He was generous with his time and
commitment to passing on his knowledge in watercolours. He will be
greatly missed by artists, friends and family.

............
His relationship to Jane Austen is set out in his biography published in
2010 p18 'Capturing Mountains - The life and art of Austen Deans' by
Nathalie Brown

"Austen Dean's connection to the great English novelist Jane Austen
comes through his mother Nora, (Norna) Knight. Jane Austen's brother
Edward (1767 -1852) was adopted in the early 1780s by his father's rich
and childless cousins, Thomas and Catherine Knight. While he always
maintained contact with his natural family, Edward took the Knight
surname and eventually inherited their estates of Godmersham in Kent,
and Chawton in Hamphshire."

Claire Clark


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