The artist Sheila Oliner, who has died aged 89, was best known as a printmaker and founding member of the Porthmeor Printmakers in St Ives, Cornwall. The group, led by Sheila, originated in the production of a portfolio made by 10 artists in 1990 in support of the planned Tate Gallery there. Following the gallery’s opening in 1993, she set up the Porthmeor Printmakers’ open access workshop, which was formally constituted as a charity in 1997 and continues today.
As the first curator of Tate Gallery, St Ives, I met her when I arrived in Cornwall in 1992 to work on the opening. The portfolio was one of many initiatives Sheila had been involved in to support the gallery, and it was included in the opening displays.
Born in Clapham, south London, Sheila was the only child of William Holden, a hotelier, and Constance (nee Skinner), a nurse. She attended a variety of schools before arriving, aged 15, at the Slade School of Fine Art to study painting, followed by study at City and Guilds of London Art School. She married Berthold Oliner, an émigré from Czechoslovakia and manager of the card room at the Victoria Sporting Club, in 1959, and together they had three children. They separated in 1981.
Her skills as a printmaker developed when working with Dorothea Wight at Studio Prints, the influential workshop run by Wight and Mark Balakjian in Kentish Town, north London, in the 1970s. This shaped Sheila’s own work and led her to also become a specialist printmaker for other artists, her most enduring collaboration being making prints for the painter Philip Sutton.
Her own work articulated her position as a woman bringing up a family and interacting with groups from diverse backgrounds in society, many still retaining vivid memories of wartime experiences. She taught art to children in care in Camden, and delivered workshops through Camden Arts Centre.
The family had been regular visitors to west Cornwall for many years, and in 1985 Sheila relocated permanently to Zennor. Her practice continued to combine painting, drawing and printmaking, and she taught printmaking at Penzance School of Art. The only artist she made plates for at this time was her friend Karl Weschke.
Sheila’s studio was a place to see her work in progress and the print projects she made with other artists. It was also a peaceful oasis. Her warmth and sensitivity allowed her friends and collaborators to step back, reflect and renew.
She is survived by her children, Jetta, Paul and Rebecca, her four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
