Freda Brierley
New Zealand textile artist
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Freda Victoria Brierley (née Selway; born 1942) is a New Zealand textile artist.[1]
Early life and family
Brierley was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1942.[1] The only child of Jane and Fred Selway, she was taught embroidery by her mother.[2][3] As a child, Brierley wanted to go to art school, but instead trained as a nurse and joined the Royal Navy as a sister in Queen Alexandra's Nursing Service.[2]
In 1967, she married Ken Brierley, a New Zealander serving in the Royal Navy who rose to the rank of lieutenant commander and was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1978 Queen's Birthday Honours.[3][4]
Textile career
In 1982, Brierley moved to New Zealand, settling in Devonport, Auckland, when her husband transferred from the Royal Navy to the Royal New Zealand Navy.[2][3] Here she was finally able to enter art school, graduating in 1993 with a Diploma (Fine Arts) from Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design.[1] Her work has been exhibited at the Barbican in London in 1995, and from November 2004 to March 2005 at the Auckland War Memorial Museum in the exhibition 'Freda Brierley – A Weaver's Tale and Historical Quilts.'[1][5]
Later life
Brierley's husband, Ken, died in 2023.[6]