The painter, David Gommon, was born in 1913, the son of a joiner from Battersea and a Scot from Fife. From this everyday working-class family he embarked on a journey of self-education. Poetry and
music were central to this. Art was his life.
What is striking about his work is that it consistently expresses an ecstatic joy in the visual world, in the form and colour of the landscape, in song birds and gardens. His was a life in art well lived
which expressed directly his own faith in the Creation and certainty that All Shall be Well.
After he retired he was commissioned by St Crispins Hospital Northampton to paint an enormous mural on the walls of the hospital. This was the Creation Mural, which rendered in paint his love of the world and everything created that is in it.
The book also explores other aspects of Gommon’s work. These include the excoriatingly satirical expressionistic artwork, The Book of the Dead, made during the Second World War, and his discerning portraits of creative people he knew and admired, such as the great Modernist poet Basil Bunting.
A creative artist needs the support of family and friends. His wife Jean made this single minded pursuit of art possible, friend writer and journalist Ian Mayes was a constant support and positive critic, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery promoted many shows of his work, they have two of his finest portraits in their collection. One of David’s pupils Tony Lattimer went on to become a remarkable potter and ceramicist, the late Barry Prothero of East Midland Arts curated his Retrospective at The Angel Row Gallery in Nottingham, and more recently Kelly Ross at her Art Stable in Dorset has held four exhibitions of his work. From this, writer Philip Vann has brought his special insight to the David Gommon Monograph, which expresses in text and image his extraordinarily creative life.