Camille Souter first came to London in 1948 to train as a nurse. While studying there she took the opportunity to visit as many exhibitions and concerts as possible. It was, she recalls "the most wonderful education I ever had."1 When she arrived she still went by the name of Betty Pamela Holmes.

By 1951 she had married the Old Vic actor Gordon Souter. Her first husband is said to have nicknamed her "Camille" as an allusion to the tubercular heroine of Alexander Dumas' La Dame aux Camelias. After completing her nursing studies, she almost immediately began to paint full-time. In London, Betty Pamela Holmes, the nurse, became Camille Souter, the bohemian artist.

During the mid-fifties she left the city, dividing her time...