The couple initially settled down in Cambridge, Massachusetts for her husband's academic career, but they later moved to Williamstown, Massachusetts; Annapolis, Maryland; Winter Park, Florida; Gainesville, Florida; New York City; and Hamden, Connecticut.[6] In 1952–1953, Nathan Comfort Starr was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Kansai UniversityinOsaka, Japan and Nina joined him in the travels.[7]
Starr was opinionated and advocated for modern design, racial equality, etiquette, the English language, folk art, women's rights, and photography, amongst other things.[6] She would often write to newspapers to express her ideas. She became interested in photography at the age of 53.[6]
In 1962, Starr had heard of self-taught artistMinnie Evans, and Starr visited Evan's place of work at the Airlie Gardens in North Carolina.[10] Evans was working at the gardens when they met, and since 1948 Evans had displayed her artwork near her work station.[10] Starr became Evan's representative and publicist for the next 25 years- she arranged and organized Evan's art exhibitions, taped interviews with the artist, she set Evan's art sales prices, and more. In the 1960s, Starr helped launch Evan's career with her first New York City art exhibition.[11] Starr was instrumental in arranging a 1975 solo exhibition of Evan's drawings at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where Starr served as a guest curator,[12][6] and she helped publish the related exhibition catalogue.
Starr's photography became known in the 1970s when she was in her 70s, while living in New York City.[13]
She died on May 14, 2000, at the age of 97, in her home in Hamden, Connecticut.[8] Her funeral services were at St. James' Episcopal Church in Manhattan.[8]
In 2015, she had a posthumous solo exhibition, The New Yorker ProjectatInstitute 193 in New York City.[6]
^ abLewis, C.S. (2007). Hooper, Walter (ed.). The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 – 1963. San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, Harper San Francisco. pp. 121, 513. ISBN9780060819224.
