Perched on a swivelling chair in his attic studio in London’s Camden Town, artist David Gentleman maintains that the only thing that interests him is his art. ‘I feel I’m wasting time if I’m not drawing or painting,’ he says. Now in his 94th year, Gentleman has lived in the five-storey house
with his wife, Sue, for over 50 years.
David recalls how his interest in painting and drawing began at an early age. ‘My parents, who were both artists, met at The Glasgow School of Art. They moved south to Hertford when my father joined the London design studio of Shell-Mex.’ Upon leaving school, David studied initially at St Albans School of Art, followed by National Service in Cornwall during the early 1950s.
‘I went on to study illustration at the Royal College of Art where my tutors included Edward Bawden, Paul Nash and Edward Ardizzone. I remember one of my earliest commissions was to draw the medieval market crosses in towns up and down the country for a design firm.’ Since then he has travelled far and wide – writing and illustrating books on Britain, Paris, India and Italy.
On his doorstep, however, is London, which in all its varied guises provides him with never-ending subject matter. Since the 1960s he has designed over 100 stamps for Royal Mail, and spanning the length of the platforms at Charing Cross Underground station are the murals based on his wood engravings of 15th-century working Londoners.
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20th-century design classics, such as the Wassily chair and the Artek side tables, sit alongside 19th-century design. To the right of the mirror are two watercolours by
David Gentleman. - Andreas von Einsiedel -
The capital’s idiosyncratic population continually provides him with inspiration, as does East Anglia, which has figured in much of his work. ‘Sue and I met when I was commissioned to make drawings for a book by George Ewart Evans, who had moved to Suffolk with his family. His wife became headmistress of the local school while he stayed home to look after the couple’s four children, one of whom was Sue,’ says David.
Sue, who was barely out of her teens, was much taken with the visiting artist and within months had moved to London with David. ‘In due course we married and a year or two later we bought this house,’ says Sue. ‘David’s 12-year-old daughter, Fenella, from his first marriage lived with us, and I was about to have a baby, so we were looking for a family house within the same street.’
The previous owner had commissioned the architect John Prizeman to update the house and he’d designed a streamlined 1960s kitchen in the basement, with a separate dining room next door. He was renowned for kitchen design and his book, Kitchens, published by the Design Centre in 1966, features photographs of this one.
‘Not much has changed since then. Large windows and glazed doors facing the gardens maximised the sense of light and space, and we liked that aspect very much,’ recalls Sue. ‘But we reconfigured the space by knocking the dining room and kitchen into one to make it more open – we didn’t think a separate dining room was necessary for our informal way of life. The wall of storage that runs the length of the room was retained and we reused the original kitchen cupboards. Apart from that, we’ve hardly changed a thing.’
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are pinned to the studio wall. - Andreas von Einsiedel -
Throughout the house, modernism is contrasted with colour and vintage decoration. Decorative plates and glassware, family photographs, prints, paintings and plants abound, but the manner in which they are displayed is ordered and considered. On the raised ground floor, the fire surround in the living room had previously been removed. ‘I rather like a fireplace,’ says Sue, ‘so I found one in a Canonbury antiques shop in a similar design to others in the terrace. No one would know it’s not the original.’
The parquet floor installed by Prizeman isn’t original either, but the rich colour of the teak and that of the bookcases lining the walls sits happily with the kilim rugs woven in a vibrant mix of pinks, yellows and ochres. Antiques such as the Victorian overmantel mirror are contrasted by contemporary design classics, such as a black leather Conran sofa, the Wassily chair and a coffee table designed by Marcel Breuer in the 1920s, and the pair of Alvar Aalto Artek benches either side of the fireplace.
There’s a muted feel to the entrance hall, staircase and main bedroom: all furnished with austere simplicity and devoid of superfluous decoration. In the bedroom, white-painted walls accentuate the sense of light and space created by the tall windows and lofty proportions.
Ascending the 100 or so steps between the kitchen and the studio several times a day clearly has its advantages, for David is considerably more spry than many a man or woman half his age. His output of paintings and drawing continues to be prodigious; those for his current project are pinned to the studio wall in neat rows, while framed examples of past work line the stairwell along with copies of Shell-Mex posters by Tom Gentleman and artists such as Tristram Hillier. As David says, ‘I like to have plenty to look at and think about while climbing the stairs.’
David Gentleman is represented by Patrick Bourne & Co. View available works at patrickbourne.co