Jean Molly Warren (Nee Martin) - Water Colour Artist 1921 - 2007

My Mother, Jean, was born and raised in Newquay, Cornwall and remained in love with the scenic beauty of this part of the UK all her life. Many of her paintings were of the charming villages and craggy coastline typical of Cornwall.

The Martin family owned the Pentire Hotel in Newquay, and her childhood was spent either in the Hotel or at the nearby village of Crantock 

She adored her father (affectionately known as Popsy) who was a retired Royal Naval Commander, and who returned to duty in World War 2 as Officer Commanding the Plymouth Defence Garrison. She had two elder sisters (Iris and Rita) and a younger brother Geoff, of whom she was particularly fond.

As a young girl, she had a talent for dance and costume design, and her life was very pleasant in the 1920’s and 1930’s

The outbreak of World War 2 in 1939 brought an end to this happy lifestyle. As part of a traditional Naval family, my mother joined the WRENS at the age of 18, along with sister Rita, soon followed by Geoff who enlisted as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. During the War, she became a cypher officer, and as part of her duties, in 1942 she was posted to Egypt – where she met Charles, a Bomber Pilot with the RAF’s 55 Squadron, and her husband to be.

At the end of the War, she married Charles and by 1952, she  had two sons. As times were hard “post war”, the family decided to join the Colonial Service, and she spent much of the next 30 yeas in Africa before returning to the UK for good in the early 1980s. 

In a 10 year period spanning the 1960s and early 1970s, when the family was back in the UK, she used her interior design skills to good effect with the family home at Acacia House, Chew Magna in Somerset, a property that she loved, and which featured in her paintings several times. 

During this time, she had not picked up a paint brush, using her artistic talents as an interior designer and dressmaker, but once back in the UK, she began to paint. Unlike her sister Iris – who was a talented oil painter – she preferred watercolours.

She never considered herself as a particularly gifted painter. Preferring to paint landscapes, her subject matter was mostly inspired  by photographs – and she admiited to having difficulty in painting portraits or people. She admired the 18th Century English painter Thomas Gainsborough enormously, as he combined portrait painting with the ladies fashions of the period.

For her, painting was a passion which she carried on throughout the last 30 years of her life. She died in 2007 at her home in Netheravon, Wiltshire. She had painted some of the local scenes and village life in Netheravon, as shown below.

For more information or Family History, please contact us by clicking on this email link.

To send information on or to share her memory, please see the Social Media Links at the bottom of the page.

Best wishes and a Long Life!
Richard (2024)