Editing Nina Hamnett (section)

== Early life ==
Hamnett was born in the small coastal town of [[Tenby]], [[Pembrokeshire]], Wales, eldest of the four children of George Edward Hamnett (born 1864), a captain in the [[Royal Army Service Corps]], and Mary Elizabeth De Blois (1863/4-1947), daughter of Captain William Edwin Archdeacon, a [[Royal Navy]] officer and cartographer. Hamnett was sent to a private boarding school at [[Westgate-on-Sea]] before moving on, aged 12, to the [[Royal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army]] in [[Bath, Somerset]] from 1902 to 1905.<ref name="odnbnh">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2004 |first=Denise |last=Hooker |title=Hamnett , Nina (1890–1956)
|encyclopedia= [[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]] |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/57344 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/57344 |accessdate= 26 January 2013}} {{subscription required}}</ref> Her father, having been dishonourably discharged from the army, took work as a taxi driver. Her education had to be funded by her aunts and by a loan against a future bequest.<ref name="ElliottWallace2014">{{cite book|author1=B. J. Elliott|author2=Jo-Ann Wallace|title=Women Artists and Writers: Modernist (Im)Positionings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=epu3AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA28|date=3 June 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-76214-0|pages=28–}}</ref> From 1906 to 1907 she studied at the Pelham Art School and then at the London School of Art until 1910. In 1914 she went to [[Montparnasse]], Paris to study at [[Marie Vassilieff]]'s Academy.

While studying in London, she met and posed for [[Henri Gaudier-Brzeska]], who sculpted a series of nude bronzes. During this period she became friendly with [[Olivia Shakespear]] and [[Ezra Pound]]. She went on to have a love affair with Brzeska, and later with [[Amedeo Modigliani]]<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=UpmBwzOT7hwC&q=olivia+shakespear J. J. Wilhelm. ''Ezra Pound in London and Paris, 1908-1925''] p. 150</ref> and [[Roger Fry]].<ref name="Jiminez2013"/>

On her first night in the [[Bohemianism|Bohemian]] community she went to the café ''La Rotonde'' where the man at the next table introduced himself as "Modigliani, painter and Jew". In addition to making close friends with Modigliani, [[Pablo Picasso]], [[Serge Diaghilev]], and [[Jean Cocteau]], she stayed for a while at [[La Ruche (residence)|La Ruche]], where many of the leading members of the avant-garde lived at the time. In Montparnasse in 1914 she also met her future husband, the Norwegian artist Edgar de Bergen, who later changed his name to Roald Kristian to sound less German. She would remain married for forty years, but her relationship with her husband lasted only three years.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/camden-town-group/walter-richard-sickert-the-little-tea-party-nina-hamnett-and-roald-kristian-r1136456|title=The Little Tea Party: Nina Hamnett and Roald Kristian 1915–16 by Walter Richard Sickert|last1=Moorby|first1=Nicola|last2=Hackney|first2=Stephen|date=2012-05-01|publisher=Tate|isbn=9781849763851|language=en}}</ref> In 1916 her husband was deported as an unregistered alien.<ref name="Jiminez2013">{{cite book|author=Jill Berk Jiminez|title=Dictionary of Artists' Models|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ogFYAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA261|date=15 October 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-95914-2|pages=261–}}</ref>

Her work was well regarded by [[Walter Sickert]], who endeavoured to advise her on her painting, but she lacked his dedication and revelled in not taking advice. Sickert used her as a model, and also painted her with her husband in 1915–16 in ''The Little Tea Party: Nina Hamnett and Roald Kristian''.<ref name=":0" />