She was born in Melbourne in 1924, and moved to London as a young woman.
The review of her works in a 1948 exhibition by Paul Haefliger was the source of the coined phrase "The Charm School" to describe these Sydney artists.
[1] In 1967 she was nominated at the 39th Academy Awards in the category of Best Costumes-Black and White for her work on the film Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment.
[1] Her autobiography The Painted Banquet: My Life and Loves, was published in 1987 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and was praised thus by Graham Greene (a former lover of hers): "An outstanding capacity for friendship - rare in the jealous world of art and letters to which she belongs - makes Jocelyn Rickard's autobiography unusually appealing".
Rickards died from pneumonia at a care home in Virginia Water, Surrey, on 7 July 2005, at the age of 80.