Nancy Circelli Kominsky (born Emanuella Agneta Circelli, 24 September 1915 – 11 March 2011
''Daily Telegraph'' (web edition), 3 April 2011) was an Italian-American artist and television presenter, who found fame in Britain with her paint-along series in the 1970s.

Personal life

Kominsky met her second husband, Patrick Wodehouse, nephew of

PG Wodehouse PG or P.G. may refer to: *Parental Guidance (PG), a content rating in motion picture content rating systems and television content rating systems *Paying Guest (PG), also called homestay, a type of accommodation Businesses and organisations * ...

, when he became one of her pupils in Rome. They were married in 1983. After leaving Italy the couple settled at

Wimbledon, London Wimbledon () is a district and town of Southwest London, England, southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes ...

. Nancy Kominsky was the author of 12 books on painting and pastels along with the autobiography ''This Is How I Did It - A Self-portrait of Nancy Kominsky''. The book was a 2010 prize winner in the Writer's Digest Annual Competition for memoirs. Kominsky died in London on March 11, 2011, at the age of 95, predeceased by her husband on January 29, 2011, at the age of 90.

Paint Along TV series

Kominsky's series ''Paint Along with Nancy'' comprised 52 half-hour programmes made by HTV West from 1974 to 1978, and transmitted on ITV network in the United Kingdom. She also made a follow-up series in the US for

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

for a 26 half hour programmes, which ran on PBS affiliates into the mid-1980s, distributed by

Connecticut Public Television Connecticut Public Television (CPTV) is the Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS) member network for the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is owned by Connecticut Public Broadcasting, a community-based non-profit organization that holds the licenses ...

. At a film festival in France, a friend introduced Kominsky to the well-known producer

Peter Orton Peter Charles Orton, CVO (17 June 1943 – 5 December 2007) was a British media entrepreneur and television producer noted for his work in children's television. He, Muppets creator Jim Henson and businesswoman Sophie Turner Laing founded HIT ...

, who liked her idea of a television programme aimed at people who wanted to learn how to paint. She began to "commute" between Rome and Bristol, where she made ''Paint Along With Nancy''. Nancy Kominsky's instruction was accompanied by an amusing, unscripted running commentary. To demystify the mixing of colours, she described the process in the manner of recipe directions: "For the background, mix a teaspoonful of orange, half a teaspoon of vermilion and a quarter of purple … ". Demonstrating as she went, she would slash on the colour with a palette knife, and would always finish with a picture that her viewers could copy. The series extended over four years and was shown extensively in several countries. Her oil painting lessons were followed with enthusiasm by housewives, shift workers, and schoolchildren, many of whom would race home after school to switch on the television set to watch her demonstrate her unusual system of painting.

Selection of her work

Paintings by Nancy Kominsky (oil on canvas—various sizes 1974–1986)

References

External links

Welcome to Nancy Kominsky.com
* ttp://metamediacom.com/wp/ :: MetaMEDIA Communications ::*
Daily Telegraph obituary of Patrick Wodehouse
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kominsky, Nancy 1915 births 2011 deaths American television personalities American women television personalities