John Minton (artist)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Francis John Minton (25 December 1917–20 January 1957) was a British painter and illustrator of landscapes, portraits, and figures, as well as a theatrical designer. He was born in Cambridge.

Minton was a boarder at Reading School from 1932 to 1935.^[1] He studied art at St John's Wood School of Art from 1935 to 1938, served in the war, but was demobbed in 1943, whereupon he worked full-time as a painter, illustrator, and teacher of art. He painted scenes of Britain, both its attractive countryside and its decayed cities, and later travelled overseas for new subjects. The increasing popularity of abstract painting at the expense of figurative work exacerbated his personal problems. He took his own life, in 1957, with an overdose of drugs.

Minton is perhaps best remembered today by the portrait of him painted by Lucian Freud.

Minton's illustrations can be seen in a number of works by Elizabeth David.

He was also a talented musician during the jazz revival.

[edit] Bibliography

Spalding, Frances. Dance till the stars come down: A biography of John Minton. London: Hutchinson, 1991. ISBN 0-340-48555-8 Reprint (as John Minton: Dance till the stars come down) Lund Humphries, 2005. ISBN 0-85331-918-9
Spalding, Frances. John Minton 1917–1957: A selective retrospective. London: Royal College of Arts, 1994.