Thread: John Minton (1917-57) was both a poetic painter & one of the most influential English illustrators of the 1940-50s. Deeply troubled, he created powerful images that are redolent of his time. I’ve been a fan since discovering his illustrations as a child 
He was born, in Cambridgeshire, into a middle class family. He studied at St John’s Wood Art Schools. In the ‘30s he visited France & was excited by local art development - which he would transmute into an Urban Romanticism. Portraits & illustrations in Ink (1939) & Door (1935)
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The palette of Urban Romanticism with its acid colours was dark & a harbinger of the war years. The Ship (1937), Myra Davis (1940), Bombed Building, Poplar (1941) & Wapping (1941)
Blitzed City with Self-Portrait (1941) & Bomb Damage, Poplar (1941) have a desolate beauty & sense of loss. The latter resembles a wood grain finish. He presents himself as an anti-hero mourning the losses.
During WWII he painted & drew many scenes of England & what was being fought for. He first registered as a conscientious objector but then joined up - & ended up being too ill to serve. The Kite (1940), On the Quay, Cornwall (c1944) & Coleman’s Heath (1942)
In 1942 he was given a show at the Leicester Gallery in London. The Hop Pickers (1945), Two Fishermen (1944), Weathercote Cave (1944) & Landscape (1944). His art was deeply personal & creative.
He shared a studio in London with Scots painters Robert Colquhoun & Robert MacBryde & later Keith Vaughan. Cornish Coast (1945), Summer Landscape (1945), The Barge (1946) & Deserted Garrison (1947). The latter is an elegiac sense of loss & time passing.
His work from 1946 is unusually colourful & joyous for him. Perhaps the end of the war brought hope. Bridge from Cannon St Station (1946), Capital M (1946), Rotherhithe from Wapping (1946) & the Lane (1946)
By the late ‘40s his Urban Romantic style had begun to capture public attention & he was sought out to illustrate works. Corsican Landscape (1947), Mining Village (1948) & Sunflower (1948)
Corte, Corsica (1947), Judith Holman (1947), Illustration (1947) & Landscape (1948). His series of works on Corsica is exquisite.
Minton was a keen educationalist & taught at various art schools including the Royal College (1948-56). Road to Valencia (1949), Two Fishermen (1949), Fishermen (1949) & Matador (1949)
Illustration (1950) & Orpheus (1948-9) - these are two of his most beautifully illustrated projects. They have a magnificence in being redolent of a time & place. Orpheus sits on my desk.
Minton was open about his homosexuality at a time when it was illegal & gathered a group around himself living life to the full it seemed. Unfortunately he went from highs to lows & overindulged in alcohol. Jamaican Girls (1951), Jamaican Fishermen (1951) & Treasure Island (1947)
One of the most influential facets of his work was his illustration which came to be the style of the English artistic zeitgeist of the 1950s. Time was Away (1948), Eric Verrico (1948) & Cornish Boy at Window (1948)
From 1949 on he exhibited at the RA. London (1949), Corsica (nd) & Time & Away (1947) incidate a growing clarity in his style.
Minton travelled widely including to Spain (1948 & 1954), The West Indies (1950) & Morocco (1952). Portuguese Canon, Morocco (1953), Jamaican Market (1951), David Tindle (c1952) & Norman Bowler (1952)
He exhibited regularly in one man shows from 1949-56. The Entombment (nd), Landscape near Kingston, Jamaica (1950), Horseguards in their Dressing Rooms at Whitehall (1953) & London’s River (1951)
By 1956 his alcoholism was out of control & his mental health suffered to the point where he took his own life in his Chelsea home on 20th January 1957, aged just 40. Kevin Maybury (oil & drawing study, 1956), Maybury & the Spanish Boy, 1956) & Self-Portrait (1953)
Minton’s work has a lasting beauty & came to define his time. It’s worth searching out his many illustrations in second hand book shops - they give endless pleasure. A major talent whose work is poetry.
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