Heather Jansch

She died, following a stroke, on 5 July 2021 at Olchard, Devon.

A life-long writer, in 2009 Jansch set up Olchard Press. She published "Heather Jansch's Diary", "Living with the Legend" about her life with Bert, and ruminations on her expeditions to Italy, "The Italian Job", released in Summer 2021.

There are pieces by Heather Jansch in private collections around the world including in the US, Canada, Switzerland, France and Romania. She exhibited internationally on a number of occasions, including, in 2007, as artist in residence at Arte Sella in Borgo Valsugana, Italy.

Her life-size driftwood horses became her hallmark and in 1999 were featured in the Shape of the Century 100 Years of Sculpture in Britain at Salisbury Cathedral. The exhibition was then taken to London's Canary Wharf as part of the millennium celebrations in 2000 where her horses caught the attention of Tim Smit, founder of the Eden Project; she was invited to become one of their resident artists. Her horse was voted the most popular art work there and has since become widely known as The Eden Horse.

By 1986 she was exhibiting sculpture regularly with Courcoux and Courcoux, a leading provincial contemporary gallery then based in Salisbury that took her work to the London Contemporary Art Fair where it received very favourable reviews.

While at Walthamstow, in 1967, she had met the musician Roy Harper. It was Harper who introduced her to the already renowned guitarist Bert Jansch, whom she later married. They had a son, Kieron, now a film-maker, in 1971. They separated in 1974 and divorced some years later.