Life and work

Born in Birmingham, education disrupted by ill health. No formal art teaching until 1966-68 when training at Digby Stuart Catholic Teacher Training College (now Roehampton University). 1968: Majored in Art, awarded Teaching Certificate with Distinction.

Studied Printing at Hammersmith College of Art and Building (now West London College) under Donald Hamilton Fraser. 1971: Awarded London Certificate in Art and Design with Distinction.

Studied Advanced Printmaking under Norman Ackroyd at Central School of Art (now Central St Martins, part of UAL) Awarded Diploma 1973.

Part-time specialist teaching while exhibiting prints to favourable reviews in national press, including: 1973 Trends, Mall Galleries; Central School Prints, Central School of Art and Design; Print Impressions (curated by Edward Lucie Smith) Oxford Gallery Oxford; 1973-74 Mixed Print Shows, Serpentine Gallery London; 1974 Jenny McNulty Prints, Studio Prints Gallery London; 1975 Royal Academy Summer Show; London 1976 A Salon des Refuses, Chelsea Town Hall London.

1981-88 Youth worker and Art tutor at Tabernacle Community Centre, included the Graffiti Mural Project. Organised and designed children’s Notting Hill Carnival Project – designs won awards every year and featured in Arts Council Touring Exhibition ‘Masquerading’ 1985-86.

After retiring early she was able to concentrate on art. In 1999  she began a series of paper reliefs of 3 x 3 white grids of platonic shapes and pots.

Her work on the  Notting Hill Children’s Carnival led her to experiment with wire constructions as well as paper models of pots she had painted, and this led to ‘mobile still life’ using wire and mesh as well as paper, card and found objects.

2006 Exhibition Jenny McNulty Semi Reliefs, Oil Paintings and Constructions, Duncan Campbell Gallery Kensington

The paper relief series and mobiles continued and she began to use digital photography to help create mixed-media installations with wire mesh models to accompany oil paintings.

After a 12-year break, she returned to oil painting with the ‘ flowerpot sequence’ of 10 oil paintings, an expansion of a little sketch for a print she had made while still at Hammersmith in 1970. In the week she died she finished her last mobile and installed it herself on the studio ceiling.