"I was christened Barbara Jane — Barbara for my mother’s grandmother, who brought her up on a small island off the coast of Lewis and Harris in the Hebrides and Jane for my father’s mother who married into the Bucknell family which takes great pride in being descended from Lady Godiva, although they do not rank as aristocrats.

My father took great interest in encouraging his children to think, and at the age of six I was handed the Bible. I spent the rest of my childhood figuring out the Old Testament for myself. A Jewish friend has said that I should have been given a Bat Mitzvah. As I grew up I won a State Scholarship which paid for my studies at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

My father, who was a gifted scientist, pursued his career as a metallurgist in both India and the U.S.A. I left for Illinois at the same time as he left for Texas and found myself studying Marcel Proust, whose passion for art I shared, at the University of Illinois under Philip Kolb, who was acknowledged as an authority on that subject. I became an authority on Marcel Proust myself when I was teaching at Brock University in Ontario.

Ever since I retired I have devoted myself to creating art."

Barbara Jane Bucknall, 2025