Nancy Orshefsky taught art at Guild Hall, Southampton College, the Sagaponack School, and the Nightingale-Bamford School in Manhattan, but she was always a working artist, too, her family said, and studied collage with Jean Varda at the San Francisco Art Institute, oil painting with Robert Gwathmey at the New School, egg tempera technique in Paris, and Chinese brushwork in Hong Kong.
She had one-woman shows in Paris, Hong Kong, and New York City, and took part in group shows at the Parrish Art Museum, Guild Hall, the Elaine Benson Gallery in Bridgehampton, and the Goat Alley Gallery in Sag Harbor, among others.
Ms. Orshefsky, who was 97, died of cardiopulmonary arrest on Aug. 14 in Great Neck, where she had moved into assisted living in 2015. Prior to that, she had lived in Sagaponack year round for 43 years, beginning in 1973, after summering there since 1965. She continued to spend her summers at her Sagaponack house even after moving to Great Neck.
Nancy White Orshefsky was born on Feb. 2, 1925, in Phoenix, a child of the former Ruth Taylor, a cartoonist and reporter for The San Francisco News, and Leonard F. White, an insurance salesman. Her parents divorced when she was little, and she and her older brother, Ted, were raised by their mother in San Francisco.
She majored in art at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., graduating in 1945 with a bachelor’s degree. She worked as a cartoonist and feature writer for The San Francisco News for six years, and it was while she was covering the teen beat that she met her future husband, Milton Orshefsky, a Life magazine reporter who was doing a story on bobby soxers and contacted her.
After they were married, in 1951, they led a peripatetic life for 12 years, living in New York, Paris, Rome, and Hong Kong, and visiting many other places.
She and Mr. Orshefsky, who died in 2007, brought up three children together, who survive: David Orshefsky of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Sarah Newbery of Montauk, and Abigail Orshefsky of Port Washington. She also leaves six grandchildren, Adam and Dylan Orshefsky, Emma and Ben Newbery, and Rhys and Iain Jackson, and one great-grandchild, Daniel Orshefsky.
Ms. Orshefsky’s brother, Ted White of Sagaponack, died in 1995; his widow, Viola (Wings) White, still lives in Sagaponack and Brooklyn. Two half sisters also survive Ms. Orshefsky, Jill Franklin of Great Neck and Alison White of Redwood City, Calif., as do three nephews, Tim White of Pennsylvania, Matthew Franklin of Great Neck, and Bill Sweeney of Brooklyn, and two nieces, Heather LoDuca of Redwood City and Barbara Orshefsky of Metairie, La.
Ms. Orshefsky was cremated. At her request, her family will have a beach party in her honor next September. Instead of memorial donations, they said, “Find some joy, see beauty in something, laugh. She always did.”
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Correction: The original version of this obituary gave an incorrect last name for Ms. Orshefsky's brother. He was Ted White.
