Hyfler/Rosner
2009-06-19 03:50:25 UTC
Charmian Campbell, who has died aged 66, was a noted society
beauty and artist best known for portraying children,
sometimes revealing an angelic gravity that came as a
surprise to parents.
Published: 6:55PM BST 18 Jun 2009
Telegraph
Although at home in pastels, chalk and oil, her preferred
mediums were sanguine and charcoal; but whatever medium she
chose, she was adept at capturing the character and beauty
of her sitters.
She was born Charmian Rachel Montagu Douglas Scott on July
18 1942 at Selkirk, the daughter of the renowned portrait
painter Molly Bishop and Lord George Montagu Douglas Scott,
youngest son of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch and 9th of
Queensberry and brother of Princess Alice, Duchess of
Gloucester.
After the war her parents settled in Wiltshire, where she
grew up with her older sister Gina and her younger brother
David, later a well regarded landscape painter. Charmian was
educated at Hatherop Castle, which she left aged 16 to study
art in Florence . She then went to the Chelsea School of Art
where, to her exasperation, she was told to empty a box of
matches on a piece of paper and draw them. She left.
By now a serious beauty, she turned her hand to modelling,
being photographed by Lichfield and Cecil Beaton among
others - she became a particular favourite of Beaton, who
featured her in his spoof biography Quail in Aspic. (Years
later Lady Diana Cooper was overheard saying to Beaton as
Charmian walked past: "Quite enchanting!" Beaton replied "I
know! I know!").
Her modelling career ended abruptly when she was driven by
the Rocky Horror Show producer Michael White into a large
hole that had yet to become the Hyde Park underpass.
Temporarily unable to work as a model as a result of minor
injuries to her face, she was rescued by the writer Lady
Antonia Fraser, who commissioned her to draw her oldest
daughter, launching Charmian in a profession that was to
last for the rest of her life.
In a long career she drew, among many others, the children
of the King and Queen of Spain and those of Prince and
Princess Michael of Kent. Other commissions included the
actress Natalie Wood and her children, and two oil paintings
of Mr Grace, the legendary porter of the Turf Club, one of
which (commissioned by Lord Hesketh) hangs in the eponymous
Grace stand at Towcester racecourse.
Modesty about her talent, allied to reticence over money
matters, kept Charmian Campbell's fees absurdly low, and she
sometimes waived them entirely, as with the beautiful
teenage daughter of her daily. She gave many portraits to be
auctioned for charity, in particular for the Amber Trust, a
musical charity for blind and disabled children, whose first
two fund-raising events she helped organise.
In vain she regularly submitted portraits to the National
Portrait Gallery's summer competition, but her limpid,
sympathetic style was at odds with its ethos. Aesthetically,
she was largely traditionalist: her response to the
Millennium Dome was to paint 67 domes in London that she
considered more beautiful.
In 1964 she married Archie Stirling, elder son of Colonel
William Stirling of Keir, and moved back to Scotland . She
became a keen sportswoman, and was particularly proficient
with a gun; she enjoyed stalking, often going barefoot on
the moor. After having two sons, William and Ludovic, she
and Stirling divorced in the late 1970s. Charmian remained
on good terms with both her husband and his two subsequent
wives.
After moving to Stockwell, south London, she married Colin
Campbell, a television executive and brother of the interior
designer Nina Campbell. He brought with him two daughters
from his previous marriage, and the union was a perfect
match: both were keen entertainers, giving long lunches and
dinners in the basement at Lansdowne Gardens or in the
beautiful garden she created there. They were no less sought
after as guests, and not just because Charmian Campbell
often left their hosts with a drawing or watercolour of the
house, garden or pet (Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's
corgis were favourite subjects on many visits to Birkhall).
Charmian Campbell, who died on April 5, displayed high
courage, good humour and stoicism during her final illness.
Her husband and her two sons survive her.
Published June 18 2009
beauty and artist best known for portraying children,
sometimes revealing an angelic gravity that came as a
surprise to parents.
Published: 6:55PM BST 18 Jun 2009
Telegraph
Although at home in pastels, chalk and oil, her preferred
mediums were sanguine and charcoal; but whatever medium she
chose, she was adept at capturing the character and beauty
of her sitters.
She was born Charmian Rachel Montagu Douglas Scott on July
18 1942 at Selkirk, the daughter of the renowned portrait
painter Molly Bishop and Lord George Montagu Douglas Scott,
youngest son of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch and 9th of
Queensberry and brother of Princess Alice, Duchess of
Gloucester.
After the war her parents settled in Wiltshire, where she
grew up with her older sister Gina and her younger brother
David, later a well regarded landscape painter. Charmian was
educated at Hatherop Castle, which she left aged 16 to study
art in Florence . She then went to the Chelsea School of Art
where, to her exasperation, she was told to empty a box of
matches on a piece of paper and draw them. She left.
By now a serious beauty, she turned her hand to modelling,
being photographed by Lichfield and Cecil Beaton among
others - she became a particular favourite of Beaton, who
featured her in his spoof biography Quail in Aspic. (Years
later Lady Diana Cooper was overheard saying to Beaton as
Charmian walked past: "Quite enchanting!" Beaton replied "I
know! I know!").
Her modelling career ended abruptly when she was driven by
the Rocky Horror Show producer Michael White into a large
hole that had yet to become the Hyde Park underpass.
Temporarily unable to work as a model as a result of minor
injuries to her face, she was rescued by the writer Lady
Antonia Fraser, who commissioned her to draw her oldest
daughter, launching Charmian in a profession that was to
last for the rest of her life.
In a long career she drew, among many others, the children
of the King and Queen of Spain and those of Prince and
Princess Michael of Kent. Other commissions included the
actress Natalie Wood and her children, and two oil paintings
of Mr Grace, the legendary porter of the Turf Club, one of
which (commissioned by Lord Hesketh) hangs in the eponymous
Grace stand at Towcester racecourse.
Modesty about her talent, allied to reticence over money
matters, kept Charmian Campbell's fees absurdly low, and she
sometimes waived them entirely, as with the beautiful
teenage daughter of her daily. She gave many portraits to be
auctioned for charity, in particular for the Amber Trust, a
musical charity for blind and disabled children, whose first
two fund-raising events she helped organise.
In vain she regularly submitted portraits to the National
Portrait Gallery's summer competition, but her limpid,
sympathetic style was at odds with its ethos. Aesthetically,
she was largely traditionalist: her response to the
Millennium Dome was to paint 67 domes in London that she
considered more beautiful.
In 1964 she married Archie Stirling, elder son of Colonel
William Stirling of Keir, and moved back to Scotland . She
became a keen sportswoman, and was particularly proficient
with a gun; she enjoyed stalking, often going barefoot on
the moor. After having two sons, William and Ludovic, she
and Stirling divorced in the late 1970s. Charmian remained
on good terms with both her husband and his two subsequent
wives.
After moving to Stockwell, south London, she married Colin
Campbell, a television executive and brother of the interior
designer Nina Campbell. He brought with him two daughters
from his previous marriage, and the union was a perfect
match: both were keen entertainers, giving long lunches and
dinners in the basement at Lansdowne Gardens or in the
beautiful garden she created there. They were no less sought
after as guests, and not just because Charmian Campbell
often left their hosts with a drawing or watercolour of the
house, garden or pet (Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's
corgis were favourite subjects on many visits to Birkhall).
Charmian Campbell, who died on April 5, displayed high
courage, good humour and stoicism during her final illness.
Her husband and her two sons survive her.
Published June 18 2009
