Anastasia Lewis: Artist, Jim Broadbent’s Wife and Bio

Anastasia Lewis is a British visual artist born in 1943 in London, known for her abstract paintings, collage, and printmaking, and for a parallel career spanning nearly three decades as a theatre, television, and film costume and wardrobe designer. After training at the St Martins School of Art and the Central School of Art in London in the late 1950s and early 1960s, she worked in professional theatre and screen design from 1963 to 1992, ran her own costume hire company Clothespeg from 1978 to 1988, and then retrained at Chelsea and Central Saint Martins to pivot fully into fine art from 1992 onwards. She has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Contemporary Art Society’s ARTfutures, the Discerning Eye at Mall Galleries, and the London Print Fair. She has been married to Oscar-winning actor Jim Broadbent since 1987 and is also known to viewers through his public profile.

Quick Bio

Attribute	Details
Full Name	Anastasia Lewis
Date of Birth	1943 (exact date not publicly disclosed)
Age	Approximately 82 years old (as of 2026)
Birthplace	London, England
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	Not publicly disclosed
Religion	Not publicly disclosed
Education	St Martins School of Art, London (NDD Intermediate, 1959-1963); Central School of Art, Theatre Design; Central School of Art; Chelsea (short courses, 1990-1992)
Profession	Visual artist (painter, printmaker, collagist); former theatre and film costume designer; former business owner
Active Since	1963 (design career); 1992 (fine art)
Notable Works	Tales of the Unexpected (1979, costume); Treacle (1988, costume); abstract paintings and prints exploring “the grid”
Relationship Status	Married (Jim Broadbent, 1987)
Children	Two sons, Tom and Paul, from a previous relationship
Net Worth	Not publicly confirmed

Who is Anastasia Lewis?

Anastasia Lewis is a British visual artist whose career divides into two distinct phases: three decades as a highly active scene painter, prop maker, costume designer, and business owner in theatre, television, and film (1963-1992), and a subsequent three-decade fine art practice as a painter, printmaker, and collagist exploring abstract grid structures (1992-present).

Catalogued authoritatively by Art UK as “a versatile artist and designer,” her work is described in her own words as exploring “the exploration and subversion of the grid. It is sourced from contemporary architecture, electronic circuit boards and the warp and weft of woven textiles.” This consistent focus on structural pattern as both subject and method gives her fine art a coherence that connects directly to her decades of applied design work, where precision and structure were practical necessities. Her works are held in the Women’s Art Collection, and her exhibitions have included some of the most prestigious open exhibition platforms in British contemporary art including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the Discerning Eye.

Anastasia is also known to a wide public as the wife of Jim Broadbent, the British actor whose Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Iris (2001), BAFTA for Moulin Rouge! (2001), and decades of beloved screen and stage roles have made him one of the most recognised faces in British film. The couple married in 1987, having met in 1983, and Jim has spoken of their partnership with warmth, describing their life together as “a great union.” Anastasia’s own identity, however, rests firmly on her independent artistic practice and career.

Early Life and Background

Childhood and Family

Anastasia Lewis was born in 1943 in London, England; details about her parents, siblings, and childhood are not in the public record, consistent with her long-term preference for privacy about personal matters.

She grew up in post-war London during a period when access to arts education at the major London art schools was expanding, and Britain’s creative industries were beginning the transformation that would characterise the 1960s. Her path to St Martins School of Art reflects a young woman with a clear artistic inclination pursuing the most direct available professional training in London’s concentrated art school culture. The details of her upbringing, family background, and early influences remain private, which is consistent with the approach to personal privacy that has defined her public presence throughout her adult life.

Education

Anastasia Lewis completed an NDD (National Diploma in Design) Intermediate course at St Martins School of Art on Regent Street in London between 1959 and 1963, and went on to study Theatre Design at the Central School of Art in London, establishing the foundational technical skills that defined the first phase of her career.

St Martins School of Art (now part of University of the Arts London as Central Saint Martins) and the Central School of Art were two of the most significant arts education institutions in London during the early 1960s, training generations of British designers, artists, and makers. The NDD qualification, a pre-degree professional design qualification, provided rigorous technical grounding in art and design practice. Her subsequent Theatre Design specialism at the Central School gave her the applied skills in costume, set, and prop construction that she would deploy professionally for nearly thirty years. Three decades later, she returned to both institutions for short retraining courses in printmaking and painting at Chelsea and Central Saint Martins from 1990 to 1992, demonstrating a remarkable commitment to structured learning even as she transitioned careers.

Career Journey

Before Fame

From 1963 Anastasia Lewis worked as a scene painter, prop maker, and freelance theatre designer for national tours and West End productions, simultaneously working as a costume designer for television and commercials.

This description, drawn from her own official biography, places her at the working heart of Britain’s professional theatre and television industries across a period of remarkable cultural vitality. The West End and national touring circuit of the 1960s and 1970s was an intensely busy environment demanding designers who could work quickly, within budget, and across multiple productions simultaneously. Television and commercial costume work added further range and pace to her practice. The combination of live theatre and screen work that characterised this period established her as a genuinely versatile design professional rather than a specialist in any single format.

How Anastasia Lewis Got Started

Anastasia’s first professional design work began in 1963 immediately after completing her training, and her television credentials were consolidated when she served as costume and wardrobe designer on the anthology drama series Tales of the Unexpected in 1979.

Tales of the Unexpected, the Roald Dahl-created anthology thriller series that ran from 1979 to 1988 on ITV, was one of the most popular British television series of its era, regularly attracting audiences of fifteen million or more viewers. Anastasia’s costume work on the 1979 series, confirmed by her IMDb listing, represents her most widely documented screen credit and places her at the centre of mainstream British television production during the programme’s peak years. In 1988 she also worked on the short film Treacle. These screen credits sit within a broader professional life that included theatre, commercial, and television work across the full three decades of her design career.

Breakthrough Moment

Anastasia Lewis founded and ran Clothespeg, a television and film costume hire company, from 1978 to 1988, employing six full-time staff and a pool of outworkers to supply costumes across the UK screen industries, establishing her as an entrepreneur and industry supplier as well as a practising designer.

Running a business with six full-time employees and additional outworkers for a decade represents a significant managerial and commercial achievement that goes well beyond the practising designer role. Clothespeg positioned Anastasia as part of the infrastructure of the British screen costume industry rather than simply a supplier to individual productions, with a client base spanning television and film across the decade of its operation. The company’s decade-long run, from 1978 to 1988, coincides with a period of rapid expansion in British television production and the early years of Channel 4, making it a commercially well-timed venture.

Career Today

As of 2026, Anastasia Lewis continues her fine art practice, exhibiting work that maintains her distinctive focus on grid structures drawn from architecture, electronic circuits, and textile weave, with recent shows including The Start of Spring at Kingsgate Workshops in 2019.

Having retrained in printmaking and painting at Chelsea and Central Saint Martins from 1990 to 1992, Anastasia has maintained her fine art practice continuously for over thirty years, exhibiting at a range of prestigious UK venues. Her most recent documented solo show, The Start of Spring at Kingsgate Workshops in 2019, confirmed she was still producing and exhibiting new work in her late seventies. Art UK’s authoritative record documents her solo show First Edition at Canary Wharf (1999), a shared exhibition Identikit at Kingsgate Gallery (2001), and her 2011 solo show “I feel like everyone else…” at Gallery Long and Ryle in London. Her work is represented in the Women’s Art Collection.

Content Style and Niche

Anastasia Lewis works primarily in abstract painting, printmaking, and collage, with a defining thematic focus on what she calls the “exploration and subversion of the grid,” drawing visual material from contemporary architecture, electronic circuit boards, and the warp and weft of woven textiles.

This self-described approach, quoted in Art UK’s authoritative entry on her practice, gives her work a distinctively intellectual and structural character that connects her design background to her fine art in a coherent way. The grid as visual architecture, found in the patterns of buildings, circuit boards, and cloth, is simultaneously a formal constraint and a subject for disruption, a tension that drives her practice. Her mixed media approach, combining paint, collage, and photography within the same conceptual framework, reflects the practical versatility she developed across three decades of professional design work. Collectors who have acquired her work and exhibition juries who have selected it for prestigious open shows at the Royal Academy and the Discerning Eye have consistently recognised the clarity and depth of this approach.

Net Worth and Income Streams

Anastasia Lewis’s personal net worth has not been publicly disclosed; her income derives from her fine art practice including sales, commissions, and exhibitions.

Income Stream	Estimated Contribution	Notes
Fine art sales and commissions	Primary personal income	Work sold through exhibitions including Affordable Art Fair, ARTfutures, gallery solo shows; in Women’s Art Collection
Design career (1963-1992) and Clothespeg business (1978-1988)	Historical	Thirty years of professional income from theatre, TV, film design and business operations

Physical Appearance

Height and Body Stats

Anastasia Lewis’s physical details have not been publicly disclosed.

Stat	Value
Height	Not publicly disclosed
Weight	Not publicly disclosed
Eye Colour	Not publicly disclosed
Hair Colour	Not publicly disclosed

Personal Life

Relationships

Anastasia Lewis married Jim Broadbent in 1987, having met him in 1983; the couple has no children together, but Jim is stepfather to Anastasia’s two sons from a previous relationship.

Jim Broadbent confirmed their marriage in his Wikipedia entry and has spoken publicly about their partnership with warmth, describing the relationship as “a great union.” The couple attended the 74th Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood in 2002, the year after Jim won his Oscar for Iris, and have appeared together at BFI London Film Festival events. Jim was born on 24 May 1949, four years after Anastasia, in Lincolnshire, from a family of artists: his father Roy was an artist, sculptor, and furniture maker, and his mother Doreen was a sculptor, giving the couple a shared grounding in British artistic family culture that has undoubtedly enriched their partnership. Jim’s Wikipedia entry confirms he “primarily lives in the Lincolnshire Wolds” and “also owns a property in London,” consistent with Anastasia dividing time between north London and the Lincolnshire countryside.

Family

Anastasia Lewis has two sons named Tom and Paul from a relationship prior to her marriage to Jim Broadbent; both sons have remained entirely out of the public eye, which is consistent with the couple’s broader approach to family privacy.

Jim Broadbent’s Wikipedia entry confirms he “has no children, but Lewis has two sons from a previous relationship,” establishing Tom and Paul as Anastasia’s children for whom Jim became a stepfather. Neither son has sought a public profile, and Anastasia has not disclosed any details about their lives, careers, or families in the limited public statements she has made. This approach to protecting her children from public attention mirrors the general principle of privacy that has defined Anastasia’s own public conduct throughout her career and her marriage to a very famous man.

Achievements and Milestones

• Completed an NDD Intermediate at St Martins School of Art (1959-1963) and Theatre Design training at the Central School of Art, establishing a professional design career that ran from 1963 to 1992.
• Costume and wardrobe designer for television and film including Tales of the Unexpected (ITV, 1979) and the short film Treacle (1988), confirmed on IMDb.
• Founded and ran Clothespeg, a television and film costume hire company employing six full-time staff and multiple outworkers, from 1978 to 1988.
• Retrained in printmaking and painting at Chelsea and Central Saint Martins (1990-1992) and transitioned fully into fine art from 1992, demonstrating a mid-career reinvention of considerable determination.
• Work held in the Women’s Art Collection; exhibitions at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Discerning Eye at Mall Galleries, ARTfutures at the Contemporary Art Society, Kettle’s Yard Cambridge, and the Affordable Art Fair.
• Solo shows include First Edition at Canary Wharf (1999), a show at Bend in the River Gallery (2007), “I feel like everyone else…” at Gallery Long and Ryle (2011), and The Start of Spring at Kingsgate Workshops (2019).

Interesting Facts About Anastasia Lewis

• Anastasia’s fine art practice, which she has maintained for over 30 years, is entirely self-motivated: she describes her work as concerned with “the exploration and subversion of the grid,” a conceptual focus that connects directly to her design career’s emphasis on pattern, structure, and material.
• She is listed in Art UK, the national database of public art collections in the UK, confirming the institutional recognition of her place in British contemporary art history.
• Her costume hire company Clothespeg, which ran from 1978 to 1988, operated during the era before digital cataloguing of costumes, meaning the business relied entirely on physical stock management and direct industry relationships, a logistical operation of considerable complexity.
• Jim Broadbent’s family background mirrors Anastasia’s artistic world: his father Roy was an artist, sculptor, interior designer, and furniture maker, and his mother Doreen was a sculptor, making both members of the couple the children of creative working parents.
• Anastasia and Jim attended the 2002 Academy Awards together, the ceremony at which Jim collected his Oscar for Iris, one of the rare occasions Anastasia has appeared at a major public event.
• Her work has been shown at the Affordable Art Fair, placing it in the accessible price range of British contemporary art and suggesting a commitment to reaching collectors beyond the top tier of the market.

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