Nancy Clare Athfield (née Cookson) is a retired New Zealand interior designer.[1]
Biography
Athfield is from Northland, New Zealand. She went to Auckland Teachers' College and trained as an art teacher graduating in 1959.[2] She taught art in Auckland and worked at the Auckland Art Gallery in the late 1950s. In 1964 she moved to Wellington, and in 1971 she began working in her husband's architectural firm, Athfield Architects. She established the firm's interiors division, provided interior design advice and also collaborated with artists as and when needed.[3][4]
Athfield influenced the colours and names of paints used in New Zealand, developing limewashes for Aalto Paints and contributing her 'knowledge of the effects of colour and light on spatial quality and materials to both Dulux and Resene paint ranges'.[2] Athfield started the idea of using New Zealand place names for paint colour names.[2]
Athfield contributed to the design of the First Church of Christ Scientist in Wellington, built in the 1980s, commissioning the ornate ceramic capitals for the church.[5][6]
Personal life
Athfield married architect Ian Athfield in Kawakawa on 22 December 1962. The couple had two sons.[3] Their family home built in the 1960s is one of New Zealand's most iconic modernist pieces of architecture, winning in 2019 the New Zealand Institute of Architects Enduring Architecture award.[7]
