My wife, Ann Clements, who has died aged 80, spent more than 30 years lecturing on the history of art to the local branches of what once was the National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies, and is now the Arts Society. The lectures entailed a huge amount of travel and frequent overnight stays with branch members, who invariably went on to become personal friends.
As a regular traveller from Surbiton, Surrey, Ann once arrived at the railway station in a milk float, having been offered a lift by the milkman; that trip ended with her being driven in a vintage Rolls-Royce by an elderly widowed “county” lady so small she could barely see over the bonnet. As the Rolls threaded through the twisting streets of a northern industrial town, Ann could not refrain from waving graciously to passers-by.
On several occasions she took her lectures to associate societies in Australia and New Zealand, travelling great distances – towards the end of a four-week trip it rather became “if it’s Tuesday this must be Melbourne” – and once again staying with hosts. Ann also lectured on European river cruises; her talks on baroque art were popular with travellers on the Rhine and Danube and, in 2007, she published a book summarising her most popular lectures, titled In the Bleak Midwinter.
Behind all her work was intense preparation and enormous enthusiasm for the subject, which began when she was a student at the University of Manchester, then one of the few British universities to teach art history. Born in Manchester, the only child of working-class parents – William Clements, an aircraft factory inspector, and Rose (nee Jackson), a clothing factory cutter and dressmaker – Ann did not shine at Whalley Range girls grammar school, but her forceful mother went to see the university vice-chancellor to persuade him of her daughter’s qualities. On graduating, Ann began cataloguing English watercolours at Manchester’s Whitworth gallery, before moving on to the Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art in London, where she worked with the art historian Basil Taylor on his book on the painter Richard Wilson.
Ann and I were married in 1966, after which there was a long interlude when she brought up our three children. She returned to lecturing, at first tentatively, with local evening classes where she soon became sought after for her knowledge and enthusiasm. For more than 20 years she was also a magistrate on the Kingston upon Thames bench, with a special involvement in family court matters.
At the age of 75, her energy and involvement suddenly diminished and her speech became hesitant. After a diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia, her speech, cognitive power and motor control skills began to rapidly decline, and by the time she required residential care, she could no longer speak.
Ann is survived by me, our children, Catharine, James and William, and seven grandchildren.
