Jocelyn Rickards

Jocelyn Rickards
Born(1924-07-29)29 July 1924
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Died7 July 2005(2005-07-07) (aged 80)
OccupationCostume designer
Years active1958–1988
Spouses
(m. 1963; div. 1970)
(m. 1971)

Jocelyn Rickards (29 July 1924 – 7 July 2005) was an Australian artist and costume designer.

She was born in Melbourne in 1924, and moved to London as a young woman.[1] During the 1940s to 1950s, she was one of the Merioola Group of artists. The review of her works in a 1948 exhibition by Paul Haefliger was the source of the coined phrase "The Charm School" to describe these Sydney artists.[2][3]

In 1966 Rickards won a BAFTA Film Award for the film Mademoiselle.[1]

In 1967 she was nominated at the 39th Academy Awards in the category of Best Costumes-Black and White for her work on the film Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment.[4] Poor health led to an early end to her career as a designer, but she later taught costume design at the University of Southern California.[1]

Rickards was married to Leonard Rosoman from 1963 until divorcing in 1970; the following year, she married Clive Donner.[1] Her autobiography The Painted Banquet: My Life and Loves, was published in 1987 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and was praised thus by Graham Greene (a former lover of hers): "An outstanding capacity for friendship - rare in the jealous world of art and letters to which she belongs - makes Jocelyn Rickard's autobiography unusually appealing".

Rickards died from pneumonia at a care home in Virginia Water, Surrey, on 7 July 2005, at the age of 80.[1]

  1. ^ a b c d e "Rickards [married names Rosoman, Donner], Jocelyn (1924–2005), costume designer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2024. doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.107108. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference SMH-1948 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference NLAmagazine was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Oscars1967 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).