David Gentleman
Encyclopedia
David Gentleman is an English artist-designer. He studied illustration at the Royal College of Art
under Edward Bawden
and John Nash
. He has worked in various media - watercolour, lithography, wood engraving - and at scales ranging from the platform-length murals for Charing Cross underground station in London to postage stamps and logos. His themes too have varied widely, from paintings of landscape and environmental posters for the National Trust
to drawings of street life in London and protest placards against the Iraq war. He has written and illustrated many books about countries and cities and has travelled widely throughout Britain, France, Italy and India.
, the son of artists who had met as painting students at the Glasgow School of Art
. He attended Hertford Grammar School and to the St Albans School of Art, did national service as an education sergeant in the Royal Army Education Corps in charge of an art room in Cornwall, and then went to the Royal College of Art. He stayed on there as a junior tutor for two years before becoming a freelance artist ready to take on whatever work came his way, however unfamiliar. His only specific resolves on leaving the RCA at 25, were never to teach, commute, or work with anyone else, and so far he has kept them. He has lived and worked in the same street in Camden Town since 1956, and also in Suffolk, but this settled existence has periodically been punctuated by spells of travelling which, since he dislikes holidays, have almost invariably been connected with his work - longer periods in France, Italy, Spain and India, shorter spells in South Carolina, Africa, Samoa and Nauru, and Brazil. Whenever he has tired of one medium or preoccupation he has turned to another, but throughout his life there has been nothing he would rather have been doing. He has four children: a daughter by his first wife Rosalind Dease, a fellow-student at the RCA, and two daughters and a son by his second wife Susan Evans, the daughter of the writer George Ewart Evans
.
His work is represented in Tate Britain
, the British Museum
, the Victoria and Albert Museum
and the Fitzwilliam Museum
.
and Suffolk
and around Britain
, on extended travels in France
, Italy
and India
, and during briefer spells in South Carolina
, East Africa
, the Pacific and Brazil
. He has held many exhibitions of these works. Commissioned series of watercolours have included landscapes for Shell
, several Oxford Almanacks for the Oxford University Press
, and interiors of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
for the FCO. His drawings and watercolours have been reproduced on textiles and wallpapers, dinner plates for Wedgwood
and on a Covent Garden
mug for David Mellor
. His architectural drawings have appeared in House & Garden
, The Sunday Times
, New York Magazine, and on the RIBA
’s series of Everyday Architecture wallcharts. His most recently published watercolours were made as illustrations for Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay by George Ewart Evans
, 2010. In 2010, Gentleman was specially commissioned by Dulwich Picture Gallery to create a design for its Christmas Card. The original watercolour painting behind the design, 'Suffolk Garden under Snow' captures the artist's own garden in winter, and was auctioned on eBay from Monday 22nd November to Wednesday 1st December at http://donations.ebay.co.uk/charity/charity.jsp?NP_ID=41841 in support of Dulwich Picture Gallery as part of the Big Give Christmas Challenge.
paperbacks, greetings cards, wine lists, press ads, and books – a lavish Swiss Family Robinson for Limited Editions Club of New York
, and a more modest edition of John Clare
's The Shepherd's Calendar for the Oxford University Press
. He later engraved 32 covers for the New Penguin Shakespeare series. His wood engravings also appear on many of his stamps, and at a very different scale in a 100 metre-long mural, his most widely seen public work. In 1978 London Transport
commissioned the platform-length Eleanor Cross murals on the underground at Charing Cross station
. It shows, step by step as if in a strip cartoon, how the medieval workforce built the original cross, from quarrying the stone to setting in place the topmost pinnacle. Its wood-engraved images of stonemasons and sculptors, enlarged twenty times to life-size, mirror today’s passengers, 20,000 a day, also going about their day’s work.
’s The Shepherd’s Calendar. In 2009 he painted watercolours to illustrate Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay by George Ewart Evans
. For the Limited Editions Club of New York
he illustrated The Swiss Family Robinson
, Keats’ Poems, The Jungle Book
, and The Ballad of Robin Hood, and several books for children, including Russell Hoban
’s The Dancing Tigers. He has also designed many paperback covers and jackets: for Penguin Books, E. M. Forster
’s novels and the New Penguin Shakespeare wood engravings; for Faber
, many watercolours for Siegfried Sassoon
and Lawrence Durrell
novels; and for Duckworth, wood engraved or typographical designs for scientific and classical works.
, making him the most prolific and acclaimed stamp designer in Britain. These include sets for Shakespeare
, Churchill
, Darwin
, British Ships, Concorde
, the Battle of Britain
, the Battle of Hastings
, the BBC
, Good King Wenceslas
, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Social Reformers, Ely Cathedral
, Abbotsbury Swannery
and the Millennium. Perhaps his greatest contribution to stamp design was his album of experimental designs, later described as ‘revolutionary’, which was commissioned by Tony Benn
, then Postmaster General. In 1965 Gentleman had written to Benn suggesting that British special stamps would be enhanced by making their subjects more interesting and by dispensing with the large photograph of the Queen then mandatory, or alternatively replacing it with a smaller profile silhouette derived initially from Mary Gillick
’s coinage head. The purpose of ‘The Gentleman Album’ was to demonstrate how such proposals would work out in practice. Over forty years later, the wider range of subjects, the profile and the simpler designs that it made possible remain an established feature of all British special stamps.
The Royal Mint have issued two of Gentleman's coin designs. The first (issued jointly with the Monnaie de Paris
in 2004) celebrated the centenary of the Entente Cordiale
, and the second in 2007 commemorated the bicentenary of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. Other miniature design commissions have included symbols or logos for the Bodleian Library
, British Steel and a redesign of the National Trust
’s familiar symbol of a spray of oak leaves.
(Visitors’ London
and Victorian London), the Imperial War Museum
, and the Public Record Office
. Perhaps the most arresting of these posters were an extensive series in the seventies for the National Trust
, using startlingly unconventional designs, photographs and photo-montages; several of them won design awards. Later, poster-like designs completely replaced words in his provocative and controversial book A Special Relationship (Faber, 1979) on the US/UK alliance. Gentleman later came to feel that these images would have been more effective as actual posters instead of being tucked harmlessly away inside a book. So on the eve of the Iraq war in 2003 he offered Stop the War Coalition a poster saying simply ‘No’. This was carried on the biggest protest march in British history. It was the first of many march placards, including ‘No more lies’ and ‘Bliar’. His largest design was an installation in 2007 of 100,000 drops of blood, one for each person already killed in the war. The bloodstains were printed on 1000 sheets of card pegged out in a vast square covering the grass in Parliament Square
.
theatre group production of Orphee
and a student exhibition, and one of his first commissions was for a large Lyons lithograph. Between 1970 and 2008 he went on to make many suites of lithographs of buildings (Covent Garden
, South Carolina
, Bath) and landscapes (of Gordale Scar
, of the Seven Sisters
, and several of Suffolk
subjects). Most of these lithographs were printed in several colours and were essentially representational. In 1970 he made the six much more severely formalised and almost poster-like Fortifications, screenprints which were published in New York
. A number of these lithographs and screenprints are in the collections of Tate Britain
.
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
under Edward Bawden
Edward Bawden
Edward Bawden, CBE, RA was a British painter, illustrator and graphic artist. He was also famous for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture...
and John Nash
John Nash (artist)
John Northcote Nash CBE RA was a British painter of landscape and still-life, wood-engraver and illustrator, particularly of botanic works.-Biography:...
. He has worked in various media - watercolour, lithography, wood engraving - and at scales ranging from the platform-length murals for Charing Cross underground station in London to postage stamps and logos. His themes too have varied widely, from paintings of landscape and environmental posters for the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
to drawings of street life in London and protest placards against the Iraq war. He has written and illustrated many books about countries and cities and has travelled widely throughout Britain, France, Italy and India.
Biography
Gentleman grew up in HertfordHertford
Hertford is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. Forming a civil parish, the 2001 census put the population of Hertford at about 24,180. Recent estimates are that it is now around 28,000...
, the son of artists who had met as painting students at the Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art is one of only two independent art schools in Scotland, situated in the Garnethill area of Glasgow.-History:It was founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Government School of Design. In 1853, it changed its name to The Glasgow School of Art. Initially it was located at 12 Ingram...
. He attended Hertford Grammar School and to the St Albans School of Art, did national service as an education sergeant in the Royal Army Education Corps in charge of an art room in Cornwall, and then went to the Royal College of Art. He stayed on there as a junior tutor for two years before becoming a freelance artist ready to take on whatever work came his way, however unfamiliar. His only specific resolves on leaving the RCA at 25, were never to teach, commute, or work with anyone else, and so far he has kept them. He has lived and worked in the same street in Camden Town since 1956, and also in Suffolk, but this settled existence has periodically been punctuated by spells of travelling which, since he dislikes holidays, have almost invariably been connected with his work - longer periods in France, Italy, Spain and India, shorter spells in South Carolina, Africa, Samoa and Nauru, and Brazil. Whenever he has tired of one medium or preoccupation he has turned to another, but throughout his life there has been nothing he would rather have been doing. He has four children: a daughter by his first wife Rosalind Dease, a fellow-student at the RCA, and two daughters and a son by his second wife Susan Evans, the daughter of the writer George Ewart Evans
George Ewart Evans
George Ewart Evans was a Welsh-born schoolteacher, writer and folklorist who became a dedicated collector of oral history and oral tradition in the East Anglian countryside from the 1940s to 1970s, and produced eleven books of collections of these materials.-Life and career:Evans was born in a...
.
His work is represented in Tate Britain
Tate Britain
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
, the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
and the Fitzwilliam Museum
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
.
Watercolours and drawings
Gentleman has spent much of his working life painting and drawing landscapes, buildings and people, and drawing also underpins most of his design work. Many of his watercolours have been made in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
and around Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, on extended travels in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, and during briefer spells in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, East Africa
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
, the Pacific and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. He has held many exhibitions of these works. Commissioned series of watercolours have included landscapes for Shell
Royal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...
, several Oxford Almanacks for the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, and interiors of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
for the FCO. His drawings and watercolours have been reproduced on textiles and wallpapers, dinner plates for Wedgwood
Wedgwood
Wedgwood, strictly speaking Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a pottery firm owned by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity company based in New York City, USA. Wedgwood was founded on May 1, 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood and in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an...
and on a Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
mug for David Mellor
David Mellor
David John Mellor, QC is a British politician, non-practising barrister, broadcaster, journalist and football pundit. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet of Prime Minister John Major as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Secretary of State for National Heritage , before...
. His architectural drawings have appeared in House & Garden
House & Garden (magazine)
House & Garden was an American shelter magazine published by Condé Nast Publications that focused on interior design, entertaining, and gardening....
, The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, New York Magazine, and on the RIBA
Riba
Riba means one of the senses of "usury" . Riba is forbidden in Islamic economic jurisprudence fiqh and considered as a major sin...
’s series of Everyday Architecture wallcharts. His most recently published watercolours were made as illustrations for Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay by George Ewart Evans
George Ewart Evans
George Ewart Evans was a Welsh-born schoolteacher, writer and folklorist who became a dedicated collector of oral history and oral tradition in the East Anglian countryside from the 1940s to 1970s, and produced eleven books of collections of these materials.-Life and career:Evans was born in a...
, 2010. In 2010, Gentleman was specially commissioned by Dulwich Picture Gallery to create a design for its Christmas Card. The original watercolour painting behind the design, 'Suffolk Garden under Snow' captures the artist's own garden in winter, and was auctioned on eBay from Monday 22nd November to Wednesday 1st December at http://donations.ebay.co.uk/charity/charity.jsp?NP_ID=41841 in support of Dulwich Picture Gallery as part of the Big Give Christmas Challenge.
Wood engravings and a mural on the Underground
Gentleman’s early wood engravings were for PenguinPenguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
paperbacks, greetings cards, wine lists, press ads, and books – a lavish Swiss Family Robinson for Limited Editions Club of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and a more modest edition of John Clare
John Clare
John Clare was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among...
's The Shepherd's Calendar for the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
. He later engraved 32 covers for the New Penguin Shakespeare series. His wood engravings also appear on many of his stamps, and at a very different scale in a 100 metre-long mural, his most widely seen public work. In 1978 London Transport
London Transport Executive (GLC)
The London Transport Executive was the executive agency within the Greater London Council, responsible for public transport in Greater London from 1970 to 1984...
commissioned the platform-length Eleanor Cross murals on the underground at Charing Cross station
Charing Cross tube station
Charing Cross tube station is a London Underground station at Charing Cross in the City of Westminster with entrances located in Trafalgar Square and The Strand. The station is served by the Northern and Bakerloo lines and provides an interchange with the National Rail network at station...
. It shows, step by step as if in a strip cartoon, how the medieval workforce built the original cross, from quarrying the stone to setting in place the topmost pinnacle. Its wood-engraved images of stonemasons and sculptors, enlarged twenty times to life-size, mirror today’s passengers, 20,000 a day, also going about their day’s work.
Books
Between 1982 and 1997, he wrote and illustrated six travel books: David Gentleman’s Britain, London, Coastline, Paris, India and Italy. Collectively they form his most extensive related works. He had also previously written and illustrated four books about a small child on holiday: Fenella in Ireland, Greece, Spain and the South of France.Illustration
Gentleman has also illustrated many books by other people, including drawings for the classic cookbook Plats du Jour and engravings for John ClareJohn Clare
John Clare was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among...
’s The Shepherd’s Calendar. In 2009 he painted watercolours to illustrate Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay by George Ewart Evans
George Ewart Evans
George Ewart Evans was a Welsh-born schoolteacher, writer and folklorist who became a dedicated collector of oral history and oral tradition in the East Anglian countryside from the 1940s to 1970s, and produced eleven books of collections of these materials.-Life and career:Evans was born in a...
. For the Limited Editions Club of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
he illustrated The Swiss Family Robinson
The Swiss Family Robinson
-History:Written by Swiss pastor Johann David Wyss and edited by his son Johann Rudolf Wyss, the novel was intended to teach his four sons about family values, good husbandry, the uses of the natural world and self-reliance...
, Keats’ Poems, The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six...
, and The Ballad of Robin Hood, and several books for children, including Russell Hoban
Russell Hoban
Russell Conwell Hoban is an American writer, now living in England, of fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magic realism, poetry, and children's books-Biography:...
’s The Dancing Tigers. He has also designed many paperback covers and jackets: for Penguin Books, E. M. Forster
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
’s novels and the New Penguin Shakespeare wood engravings; for Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
, many watercolours for Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...
and Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence George Durrell was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan...
novels; and for Duckworth, wood engraved or typographical designs for scientific and classical works.
Stamps, coins and logos
Between 1962 and 2000 Gentleman designed 103 stamps for the Post OfficePost office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
, making him the most prolific and acclaimed stamp designer in Britain. These include sets for Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, British Ships, Concorde
Concorde
Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde was a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport . It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation...
, the Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
, the Battle of Hastings
Battle of Hastings
The Battle of Hastings occurred on 14 October 1066 during the Norman conquest of England, between the Norman-French army of Duke William II of Normandy and the English army under King Harold II...
, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, Good King Wenceslas
Good King Wenceslas
"Good King Wenceslas" is a popular Christmas carol about a king who goes out to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen . During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step,...
, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Social Reformers, Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral is the principal church of the Diocese of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, and is the seat of the Bishop of Ely and a suffragan bishop, the Bishop of Huntingdon...
, Abbotsbury Swannery
Abbotsbury Swannery
Abbotsbury Swannery is the only managed colony of nesting mute swans in the world. It is situated near the village of Abbotsbury in Dorset, England, west of Weymouth on a site around the Fleet lagoon protected from the weather of Lyme Bay by Chesil Beach. The colony can number over 600 swans with...
and the Millennium. Perhaps his greatest contribution to stamp design was his album of experimental designs, later described as ‘revolutionary’, which was commissioned by Tony Benn
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...
, then Postmaster General. In 1965 Gentleman had written to Benn suggesting that British special stamps would be enhanced by making their subjects more interesting and by dispensing with the large photograph of the Queen then mandatory, or alternatively replacing it with a smaller profile silhouette derived initially from Mary Gillick
Mary Gillick
Mary Gillick was a sculptor best known for her effigy of Elizabeth II used on coinage in the United Kingdom and elsewhere from 1953 to 1967....
’s coinage head. The purpose of ‘The Gentleman Album’ was to demonstrate how such proposals would work out in practice. Over forty years later, the wider range of subjects, the profile and the simpler designs that it made possible remain an established feature of all British special stamps.
The Royal Mint have issued two of Gentleman's coin designs. The first (issued jointly with the Monnaie de Paris
Monnaie de Paris
The Monnaie de Paris or, more administratively speaking, the "Direction of Coins and Medals", is an administration of the French government charged with issuing coins as well as producing medals and other similar items. Many ancient coins are housed there...
in 2004) celebrated the centenary of the Entente Cordiale
Entente Cordiale
The Entente Cordiale was a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial expansion addressed by the agreement, the signing of the Entente Cordiale marked the end of almost a millennium of intermittent...
, and the second in 2007 commemorated the bicentenary of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. Other miniature design commissions have included symbols or logos for the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
, British Steel and a redesign of the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
’s familiar symbol of a spray of oak leaves.
Posters
Gentleman has designed posters for several public institutions, including London TransportLondon Transport (brand)
London Transport was the public name and brand used by a series of public transport authorities in London, England, from 1933. Its most recognisable feature was the bar-and-circle 'roundel' logo...
(Visitors’ London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Victorian London), the Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...
, and the Public Record Office
Public Record Office
The Public Record Office of the United Kingdom is one of the three organisations that make up the National Archives...
. Perhaps the most arresting of these posters were an extensive series in the seventies for the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
, using startlingly unconventional designs, photographs and photo-montages; several of them won design awards. Later, poster-like designs completely replaced words in his provocative and controversial book A Special Relationship (Faber, 1979) on the US/UK alliance. Gentleman later came to feel that these images would have been more effective as actual posters instead of being tucked harmlessly away inside a book. So on the eve of the Iraq war in 2003 he offered Stop the War Coalition a poster saying simply ‘No’. This was carried on the biggest protest march in British history. It was the first of many march placards, including ‘No more lies’ and ‘Bliar’. His largest design was an installation in 2007 of 100,000 drops of blood, one for each person already killed in the war. The bloodstains were printed on 1000 sheets of card pegged out in a vast square covering the grass in Parliament Square
Parliament Square
Parliament Square is a square outside the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in London. It features a large open green area in the middle, with a group of trees to its west. It contains statues of famous statesmen and is the scene of rallies and protests, as well as being a tourist...
.
Lithographs and screenprints
Gentleman's first lithographs were posters for an Royal College of ArtRCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
theatre group production of Orphee
Orphée
Orpheus is a 1950 French film directed by Jean Cocteau and starring Jean Marais. This film is the central part of Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, which consists of The Blood of a Poet , Orpheus and Testament of Orpheus...
and a student exhibition, and one of his first commissions was for a large Lyons lithograph. Between 1970 and 2008 he went on to make many suites of lithographs of buildings (Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, Bath) and landscapes (of Gordale Scar
Gordale Scar
Gordale Scar is a dramatic limestone ravine 1 mile or 1.5 km NE of Malham, North Yorkshire, England. It contains two waterfalls and has overhanging limestone cliffs over 100 metres high. The gorge was formed by water from melting glaciers...
, of the Seven Sisters
Seven Sisters, Sussex
The Seven Sisters are a series of chalk cliffs by the English Channel. They form part of the South Downs in East Sussex, between the towns of Seaford and Eastbourne in southern England. They are within the Seven Sisters Country Park...
, and several of Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
subjects). Most of these lithographs were printed in several colours and were essentially representational. In 1970 he made the six much more severely formalised and almost poster-like Fortifications, screenprints which were published in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. A number of these lithographs and screenprints are in the collections of Tate Britain
Tate Britain
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
.
Surveys of Gentleman's work
- The wood engravings of David Gentleman. Montgomery: Esslemont, 2000. ISBN 0-907014-17-8
- David Gentleman - Design. Brian Webb and Peyton Skipwith: Antique Collectors' Club, 2009. ISBN 978-1-85149-595-5
Books by Gentleman
- Bridges on the backs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961.
- Design in miniature. London: Studio Vista, 1972. ISBN 0-289-79791-8 New York: Watson-Gupthill, 1972. ISBN 0-8230-1322-7
- A cross for Queen Eleanor: The story of the building of the mediaeval Charing Cross, the subject of the decorations of the Northern Line platforms of the new Charing Cross Underground Station. London: London Transport, 1979. ISBN 0-85329-101-2
- David Gentleman's Britain. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1982. ISBN 0-396-08145-2 London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982. ISBN 0-297-78126-X, 1985. ISBN 0-297-78621-0
- David Gentleman's London. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985. ISBN 0-297-78574-5 Dodd, Mead, 1985. ISBN 0-396-08652-7 London: Orion, 1999. ISBN 0-7538-0700-9
- Westminster Abbey. (With Edward Carpenter.) London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. ISBN 0-297-79314-4
- A special relationship. London: Faber and Faber, 1987. ISBN 0-571-14992-8
- David Gentleman's Coastline. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988. ISBN 0-297-79314-4
- David Gentleman's Paris. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991. ISBN 0-340-58160-3 ISBN 0-340-51869-3 Paris: Gallimard,1991. ISBN 2-07-056619-6 London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000. ISBN 1-84188-052-3
- David Gentleman's India. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1994. Delhi: Tara Press, 2005. ISBN 81-87943-71-8
- David Gentleman's Italy. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997 ISBN 0-340-64912-7, 1998 ISBN 0-340-64913-5
- Artwork. London: Ebury, 2002. ISBN 0-09-188652-X*
- Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay. Framlingham, Full Circle Editions, 2010 ISBN 978-0-9561869-2-8
Books for children by Gentleman
- Fenella in Greece. London: Cape, 1967.
- Fenella in Ireland. London: Cape, 1967.
- Fenella in the south of France. London: Cape, 1967.
- Fenella in Spain. London: Cape, 1967.
Books illustrated by Gentleman
- Betjeman, John. Illustrated poems of John Betjeman. John Murray, 1994. ISBN 0-7195-5248-6, 1997. ISBN 0-7195-5532-9
- Blunden, Edmund. The midnight skaters. Ed. C. Day Lewis. London: Bodley Head, 1968.
- Brooke, Justin, and Edith Brooke. Suffolk Prospect. London: Faber & Faber, 1963.
- Brown, John Russell. Shakespeare and his theatre. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1982. ISBN 0-688-00850-X Harmondsworth: Kestrel, 1982.
- Brown, John Russell. Shakespeare's theatre. New York: Harper Collins, 1982.
- Clare, John. The shepherd's calendar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964.
- Evans, George Ewart. Ask the fellows who cut the hay. Full Circle Editions, Framlingham, 2010. ISBN 978-9561869-2-8
- Evans, George Ewart. The crooked scythe: Anthology of oral history. London: Faber & Faber, 1993. 1995. ISBN 0-571-17194-X
- Evans, George Ewart. The pattern under the plough: Aspects of the folk-life of East Anglia. London: Faber & Faber, 1971. ISBN 0-571-08977-1
- Evans, George Ewart. The strength of the hills: An autobiography. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1985. ISBN 0-571-13550-1
- Evans, George Ewart. Where beards wag all: The relevance of the oral tradition. London: Faber & Faber, 1970. ISBN 0-571-08411-7
- "Francine" (Cosette Vogel de Brunhoff). "Vogue" French cookery. London: Peerage, 1984. ISBN 0-907408-86-9
- Gray, Patience, and Primrose Boyd. Plats du jour; or, foreign food. Harmondsworth, Middx: Penguin, 1957. London: Prospect, 1990. ISBN 0-907325-459 London: Persephone, 2007. ISBN 9781903155608
- Grigson, Geoffrey. The Shell book of roads. London: Ebury, 1964.
- Haggard, F. Rider. King Solomon's mines. Barre, Mass.: Imprint Society, 1970.
- Hoban, Russell. The dancing tigers. London: Jonathan Cape, 1977, 1979. London: Red Fox, 1991.
- Hooker, Jeremy, ed. Inwards where all the battle is: A selection of Alun Lewis's writings from India. Newtown, Powys: Gwasg Gregynog, 1997. ISBN 0-948714-77-8 ISBN 0-948714-73-5
- Hornby, John. Gypsies. London: Oliver & Boyd, 1965.
- Jonson, Ben. The key keeper: A masque for the opening of Britain's Burse, April 19, 1609. Tunbridge Wells: Foundling Press, 2002.
- Kipling, Rudyard. The jungle book. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1968.
- Langstaff, John M. The 'Golden Vanity'. New York: Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich 1972. ISBN 0-15-231500-4 Tadworth: World's Work, 1973. ISBN 0-437-54106-1
- Langstaff, John M. St George and the dragon. New York: Atheneum, 1973.
- Lees, Jim. The ballads of Robin Hood. Cambridge: Limited Editions Club, 1977.
- Moreau, Reginald E. The departed village: Berrick Salome at the turn of the century. Oxford University Press, 1968. ISBN 0-19-211186-8
- Notestein, Lucy Lilian. Hill towns of Italy. London: Hutchinson, 1963. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.
- Pudney, John. Bristol fashion: Some account of the earlier days of Bristol Aviation. London: Putnam, 1960.
- Simon, André L. What about wine? All the answers. London: Newman Neame, 1953.
- Stallworthy, Jon. A familiar tree. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-19-520050-0
- Steel, Flora Annie, ed. Tales of the Punjab, told by the people. London: Bodley Head, 1973.
- Stockton, Frank. The griffin and the minor canon. (With Charles Dickens, "The magic fishbone.") London: Bodley Head, 1960.
- Vallans, William. A tale of two swannes. London: The Lion and Unicorn Press, 1953.
- Ward, Aileen, ed. The poems of John Keats. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1966.
- Woodgate, Leslie. The Penguin part song book. Harmondsworth, Middx: Penguin, 1955.
- Wordsworth, William. The solitary song: Poems for young readers. London: Bodley Head, 1970. ISBN 0-370-01118-X
- Wyss, Johann. Swiss Family Robinson. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1963.
Solo exhibitions of watercolours by Gentleman
- India, Mercury Gallery, London, 1970.
- South Carolina, Mercury Gallery, London 1973.
- Kenya and Zanzibar, Mercury Gallery, London, 1976.
- Nauru and Samoa, Mercury Gallery, London, 1981.
- Britain, Mercury Gallery, London, 1982.
- London, Mercury Gallery, London, 1985.
- The British Coastline, Mercury Gallery, London, 1988.
- Paris, Mercury Gallery, London, 1991.
- India, Mercury Gallery, London, 1994.
- Italy, Mercury Gallery, London, 1987.
- City of London, Mercury Gallery, London, 2000.
- David Gentleman: from Andalusia to Zanzibar, Fine Art SocietyFine Art SocietyThe Fine Art Society is an art dealership with two premises, one in New Bond Street, London and the other in Edinburgh . It was formed in 1876...
, 2004. - Recent work, Fine Art SocietyFine Art SocietyThe Fine Art Society is an art dealership with two premises, one in New Bond Street, London and the other in Edinburgh . It was formed in 1876...
, 2007. - David Gentleman at eighty, Fine Art SocietyFine Art SocietyThe Fine Art Society is an art dealership with two premises, one in New Bond Street, London and the other in Edinburgh . It was formed in 1876...
, 2010
Retrospective exhibitions
- Gentleman on Stamps, The British Postal Museum & ArchiveThe British Postal Museum & ArchiveThe British Postal Museum & Archive is the leading resource for all aspects of the history of the British postal system. It operates three sites: The Royal Mail Archive at Mount Pleasant sorting office in Clerkenwell, London, a Museum Store in Loughton, Essex and The Museum of the Post Office in...
, London, 2009-2010. - "The Kite Needs the String: the book illustration of David Gentleman", Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collections, 2010-2011.
External links
- David Gentleman: images of postwar Britain, GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
(article) - Fifty years of looking and learning for artist David (interview)
- The stamp of a master, GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
interview by John Cunningham, prompted by the publication of Artwork. - In the spotlight, an interview by Gordon Milne, about Gentleman's stamp designs
- Interview in The HinduThe HinduThe Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
about David Gentleman's India - Outlining India, Gentleman style
- List of Gentleman's stamp designs
- Scenes from the streets Exhibition review Camden New Journal
- Gentleman on Stamps - an online exhibition produced by The British Postal Museum & ArchiveThe British Postal Museum & ArchiveThe British Postal Museum & Archive is the leading resource for all aspects of the history of the British postal system. It operates three sites: The Royal Mail Archive at Mount Pleasant sorting office in Clerkenwell, London, a Museum Store in Loughton, Essex and The Museum of the Post Office in...