Harry Thubron

“If we, ourselves, don’t take jobs in colleges, take leadership roles; then nothing will ever change.” - Harry Thubron

Harry Thubron OBE (Henry James Thubron, 1915–1985) was an English artist and art teacher. His was a familiar name nationally and internationally during the 50s and 60s. His radical and reconstructive work in art education was legendary and many have said that he was one of the greatest teachers Britain has ever known. Thubron's specific innovations in art education are still controversial.

He was born on 24 November 1915 at 7 Victoria Avenue, Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham, the son of Percy Thubron, journeyman joiner (and later a newsagent and tobacconist), and his wife, Martha Ada, née Thompson (d. 1929/30). His mother, who died when he was fourteen, would shut him away in a room to paint from the age of seven.

Having attended Henry Smith Grammar School, Hartlepool, he went on to Sunderland School of Art (1933–8) and to the Royal College of Art, London (1938–40). Thubron served in HM Armed Forces (1941–46) at the Army Bureau of Current Affairs Newsletter.

On 6 March 1940 he married, in Battersea, London, Joan Sawdon, a schoolteacher, daughter of Frank Sawdon, a hairdresser. Following his divorce in 1962, he married, on 4 August 1965 in Lancaster, Elma Askham, an artist and lecturer, daughter of William Marsh Askham.

In 1977 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services in art education.

Thubron died at home in Lewisham, London in April 1985.

Thubron started to create figurative works, which soon changed to abstract, not only in painting, as in reliefs in wood, metal or resin. After 1965, he devoted himself mainly to collages and assemblages with materials found on the street, usually from industry.

Out of the turbulence of the years after his divorce Thubron produced comparatively few works of art, but these, based on a dialogue between old and new materials, and painting and collage, were treasured by friends and colleagues who rightly judged them to be sensitive and beautiful. With Dennis Harland as technical adviser he produced a fine relief in plastics for the exterior of the Branch College, Leeds (1963–4; removed), which fulfilled his ambition to make art for public, architectural settings. He showed work in Leeds at the Queen Square Gallery in 1967, and again that year with Elma Thubron. Later, in 1976, he showed paintings and collages at the Serpentine Gallery, London. He was also included in major surveys, among them 'British Art' at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1974, and 'British Painting, 1952–77' at the Royal Academy, London, in 1977.

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