Tessa Newcomb

British b. 1955

Tessa Newcomb is a painter in oil on board and furniture. She was born in Suffolk, she is the daughter of the artist Mary Newcomb. Newcomb studied at Norwich School of Art (1972-3), and gained an honours degree from Bath Academy of Art in 1976, followed by a year’s advanced printmaking at Wimbledon School of Art in 1977.

Scenes of the Suffolk countryside, coastline and country events dominate her work. The stories Newcomb paints of Suffolk is a place of odd encounters an unkempt land and seascapes featuring working figures, dogs, boats, churchyards and allotments all portrayed in her distinctive style.

Newcomb has participated in mixed exhibitions, showing at galleries including Crane Arts and Mercury Gallery in London and Edinburgh. She had two solo shows at Annexe Gallery, Wimbledon, 1979-80, and later ones including the Christopher Hull Gallery from 1987, and Chappel Galleries, Chappel, 1996 (with Hein Bonger).

She has completed jacket illustrations for Julia Blackburn’s Daisy In The Desert and the paperback of The Emperor’s Last Island, both in 1994. Tessa and author Phillip Vann worked on a book entitled ‘Tessa Newcomb’ (Sansom & Company, 2010). Tessa also published a number of books with Sansom & Company including The Adorable Plot, 2012, and Tessa Newcomb’s Paris, 2014. She also collaborated with Jason Gathorne-Hardy on An Artist in the Garden, published by Full Circle Editions, 2012.

Newcomb is represented in the Bradford Metropolitan Museum, Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, Strawberry Hill College and Ocean and Transport. Furthermore, she has works in public collections including the Bradford Metropolitan Museum, the Archant Art Collection, Norwich and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. 
 
 Newcomb lives in Suffolk with her partner Telfer Stokes who is the artist son of Margaret Mellis.