Odile Crick - Life With Crick in Britain

Life With Crick in Britain

The Cricks married in 1949 and lived in Cambridge. Odile Crick worked as a teacher at what is now Anglia Ruskin University before the births of their daughters Gabrielle on 15 July 1951 and Jacqueline on 12 March 1954.

Crick and Watson asked her to draw an illustration of the double helix for their paper on DNA for Nature in 1953. The sketch was reproduced widely in textbooks and scientific articles and has become the symbol for molecular biology.

However, she was not aware at first of the importance of the discovery. In his memoir What Mad Pursuit, Crick said that she had told him later "You were always coming home and saying things like that, so naturally I thought nothing of it."

Several exhibitions have been held of Crick's paintings of curvaceous nudes. Her models included her husband's secretaries and au pairs for their children.

The Cricks became famous for their parties in the 1960s either in Cambridge or at a cottage near Haverhill. At one party, a nude model posed on a couch to encourage their guests to become amateur painters.