John Craxton
| John Craxton | |
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Portrait of John Craxton sleeping by Alexandros Kleidonas (London, 2002)
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| Born |
3 October 1922 St John's Wood, London |
| Died | 17 November 2009 (aged 87) |
| Known for | painting |
John Leith Craxton RA, (3 October 1922 – 17 November 2009) was an English painter. He was sometimes called a neo-Romantic artist but he preferred to be known as a "kind of Arcadian".
John was the son of musician Harold Craxton and his wife Essie. His older brother Harold Antony Craxton (1918–1999) became a leading television producer and outside broadcaster. His sister Janet became a notable oboist.
He went to Clayesmore School. He applied for Chelsea School of Art but was considered to be too young to attend nude life classes. Instead he studied at the Académie Julian and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris during 1939, until the outbreak of war meant he had to complete his studies in London, at Westminster School of Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Between 1941 and 1942, having been rejected for military service, he attended Goldsmiths College, then toured the wilds of Pembrokeshire with Graham Sutherland in 1943. His first solo exhibition was in London in 1942 at the Swiss Cottage Café, and his first major solo show at the Leicester Galleries in 1944. His work was seen as part of the neo-romantic revival, and his early pre-1945 work shows the influence of Sutherland and Samuel Palmer, and he was also heavily influenced by friend and patron Peter Watson.
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