The Road to Siena

Julia Katrina Heseltine was born at St Pancras, London in 1933, daughter of Guy Robert Nelson Heseltine (1897-1967) and his wife, Anna Katrina née Zinkeisen (1901–1976), who married at Marylebone, London on 25 July 1928. Heseltine came from a family whose history has been strongly associated with painting, with her mother Anna and aunt Doris Clare Zinkeisen, both well-known painters in the mid-twentieth century. Assisted by her mother, Julia started painting at an early age, with her first commission at the age of 16, being a portrait of Jonathon Porritt (aged four), who went on to become a key figure with Friends of the Earth. She studied at the Chelsea School of Art, the Byam Shaw School of Art and at the Royal Academy Schools. Her portraits are varied and powerful, particularly her civic commissions, and she developed an exciting technique for compositional vignettes that add mystery and animation to her portraits. The artist also painted animals and houses in the landscape, either as a picture or as part of a portrait. She exhibited at the Royal Academy, London and was a former member of the Royal Academy Schools East Anglia Group. She held numerous exhibitions throughout her career and fulfilled commissions from Sir Lawrence Olivier, Alan Clark MP, Bamber Gascoigne, Joan Plowright and Ted Hughes and many others.