John Minton (artist)

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John Minton
St John's Wood School of Art
Known forPainting, illustration

Francis John Minton (25 December 1917 – 20 January 1957) was an English painter, illustrator, stage designer and teacher. After studying in France, he became a teacher in London, and at the same time maintained a consistently large output of works. In addition to landscapes, portraits and other paintings, some of them on an unusually large scale, he built up a reputation as an illustrator of books.

In the mid-1950s, Minton found himself out of sympathy with the

abstract
trend that was then becoming fashionable, and felt increasingly sidelined. He suffered psychological problems, self-medicated with alcohol, and in 1957 died by suicide.

Life and career

Early years

Minton was born in

Second World War
began.

In October 1939 Minton registered as a

Tate Gallery.[5]

Teacher, painter and illustrator

From 1943 to 1946 Minton taught illustration at the

homosexual love triangle.[9]

Every living person has certain feelings about the world around him. It is these feelings, common to all men, which are the raw materials of the artist's inspiration. This he must 'translate', into the structure of an art form, whether music, poetry or painting. The problem of the painter is this 'translation'; that is, he has to create some arrangement of shape, line and colour which convey the idea or the emotion which moved him to paint this particular picture.

Minton's range was wide. Although he is best remembered as an illustrator, he also worked on a very large scale, with unusually big paintings for the

Royal Academy a huge painting of the soldiers dicing for the garment of Jesus, described by The Manchester Guardian as "one of the most elaborate and serious paintings with a religious theme produced since the war."[2]

He designed textiles and wallpapers;[2] he produced posters for London Transport and Ealing Studios; and he was highly regarded as a portrait painter.[1] He also worked in collage.[11] He painted scenes of Britain, from rural beauty to urban decay, and travelled overseas, producing scenes of the West Indies, Spain and Morocco. The Times wrote, "Even when they were ostensibly of Spain and Jamaica, Minton's landscapes looked back to Samuel Palmer for their mood. They were densely patterned and luxuriantly coloured, and it was always the fullness and richness of the scene which attracted his eye and which he painted with such evident enjoyment."[6]

Minton's posthumous fame is principally as an illustrator.

Secker and Warburg and Rupert Hart-Davis. One such notable book jacket was for H. E. Bates The Country Heart (Michael Joseph 1949).[14]

Although Minton was respected both by the conservative

abstract painting that began to prevail during the 1950s, and he felt increasingly out of touch with current fashion. He suffered extreme mood swings and became dependent on alcohol. In 1957, he took an overdose of sleeping tablets to take his own life at home,[1] 9 Apollo Place, Chelsea, London
, and died on the way to St Stephen's Hospital, Chelsea. He left an estate valued at £13,518, worth £416,997 in 2023.

Memorials

A major exhibition to mark Minton's centenary took place at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester from 1 July to 1 October 2017, co-curated by the Gallery's Director Simon Martin and Minton's biographer Frances Spalding, and is the first exhibition in a museum since the 1994 touring Select Retrospective.[15]

Minton was the subject of the song "The Ghost of Mr. Minton" by London-based pop group Would-Be-Goods on their 2008 album Eventyr. A quote from Minton, "We're all awash in a sea of blood, and the least we can do is wave to each other" inspired the title of the Van der Graaf Generator album The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other.[16]

In the

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
's entry on Minton, Michael Middleton writes:

Minton is often seen as an illustrator rather than a painter. He certainly extended and enriched the English graphic tradition. In all his varied output, however, may be sensed an elegiac awareness of the evanescence of physical beauty that is entirely personal. His work is to be found in the Tate collection, and many public and private collections at home and abroad. A retrospective exhibition of 1994, curated by his biographer, Frances Spalding, provided a convincing reminder of the range of his gifts. For the historian he must remain a potent symbol of his period.

References

  1. ^
    Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press
    , 2004, online edition, Oct 2006, accessed 16 May 2011 (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b c d e Bone, Stephen. "John Minton – Artist of many talents," The Manchester Guardian, 22 January 1957, p. 5
  3. ^ "Macbeth", The Times, 9 July 1942, p. 6
  4. ^ "Young Artists – Exhibition at Leicester Galleries", The Times, 16 October 1942, p. 6
  5. Tate
    Collection, accessed 25 November 2014.
  6. ^ a b c d e "Mr. John Minton – The lyrical touch," The Times, 22 January 1957, p. 12
  7. ^ "Art Exhibitions – Early Calm and Modern Unrest", The Times, 25 October 1944, p. 6
  8. ^ "John Minton 1952". Archived from the original on 9 November 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  9. ^ Brown, Mark (10 July 2021). "Exhibition brings to light young Freud's love triangle". The Guardian. London. p. 25.
  10. ^ Minton, John. "Seven Artists Tell why they Paint", Picture Post, 12 March 1949. p. 13
  11. ^ "Antiques Roadshow - Series 42: Morden Hall Park 2". BBC. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  12. ^ Cooper, p. 152
  13. ^ Martin Salisbury (21 October 2017). "Cover stories: beautiful book-jacket designs - in pictures". The Observer. Retrieved 24 October 2017.
  14. ^ "The Country Heart :: HE Bates". hebates.com. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
  15. ^ "Pallant House Gallery". Archived from the original on 24 April 2017.
  16. ^ The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other (additional poster) (Media notes). Charisma Records. 31 December 1969. CAS 1007. Retrieved 13 February 2015.

Further reading
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