Augustus John

Born 1878 – Died 1961

Augustus John was born in Tenby. John studied at the Slade (1894-98), where his bohemian exploits made him a legendary figure amongst younger students such as Wyndham Lewis. He spent much of the 1900s in France, painting peasant and Harlequin subjects under the influence of Puvis de Chavannes and the Post-Impressionists. John sought to fuse the bravura drawing and handling of paint of the Mannerist painters with the colouring and subjects of modernity, with occasional success. After a spell as an official war artist, he became a fashionable portraitist in the 1920s, and a society regular. By the 1930s, however, his work had become rather passé and although he continued to paint, he never enjoyed the same level of exposure again. He died in Fordingbridge.