Jensine Costello was born as Emma Jensine Olsen in Vega, Nordland, Norway, on 7 May 1886, the daughter of Ole Olsen, a fisherman, and his wife Oline Kristiansen. Following a period in the United States she immigrated to England in the latter part of the 1920s, where she trained at Heatherley's School of Art in London. She settled in Ilford, Essex, establishing herself as a painter of portraits and figures. Jensine Costello died in Devon, England, on 20 April 1973.
Painter Jensine Costello was born on 7 May 1886 in Vega Municipality, Nordland, in the far north of Norway, then part of the union between Norway and Sweden that was not dissolved until 1905. Her full given name was Emma Jensine, as recorded in her burial record. Following her upbringing in Norway, Costello spent a period in the United States, where she also undertook some artistic training, before immigrating to England in the latter part of the 1920s. In England she enrolled at Heatherley's School of Art in London, which had from its earliest years admitted women on equal terms with men. At Heatherley's she studied under H. Massey, F. Whiting and the portrait painter Bernard Adams. She subsequently settled in Ilford, Essex, where she became a member of the Ilford Art Society and of the Soroptimist Club of Ilford. She married Dr J.J. Costello, a subject of one of her most noted portraits.
Costello worked principally in oils, concentrating on portraiture and figure subjects, as well as flower pieces. A review published in the Eastern Counties' Times in May 1935 described her as 'a painstaking and accomplished artist' and drew particular attention to a work entitled, An Italian, noting its 'romantic quality curiously fascinating... with its subdued colouring and suggestion of vitality in repose'. The same review remarked that her portrait Dr J.J. Costello had 'commanded instant admiration' at the London Portrait Society's exhibition. A review of a 1928 exhibition described her portrait of Joan Costello as 'a praiseworthy effort'. In April 1935 she addressed the Soroptimist Club of Ilford on the subject of landscape painting, arguing, as reported in the Eastern Counties' Times, that the artist must interpret rather than copy nature: 'no true artist wanting to paint a landscape or a portrait sits down and paints just what she sees in front of her'.
Costello exhibited consistently across leading professional exhibiting bodies in Britain and France. By 1935, her portraits had been accepted by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the London Portrait Society, and Dr J.J. Costello and An Italian were both shown at the London Portrait Society exhibition; the latter was also selected, by special invitation, for the Bradford Arts Exhibition. She exhibited regularly with the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the National Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers. From 1936 to 1938 she showed work at the Paris Salon. Costello later relocated from Ilford to Exmouth, Devon.
Jensine Costello died in Devon on 20 April 1973 and is buried at St Margaret and St Andrew's Church, Littleham, Exmouth. No works by Costello are currently recorded in UK public collections. The Ben Uri Research Unit welcomes contributions from researchers or family members who may have further biographical information.
Michal Mel
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Jensine Costello]
Publications related to [Jensine Costello] in the Ben Uri Library