Augustus Edwin John
Nationality: British, Welsh
Born: 1878-01-04, Tenby, Wales
Died: 1961-10-31

Augustus John was born at Tenby in Pembrokeshire. He studied at the Slade School of Art UCL in London and even before his graduation had proven to be the most talented draughtsman of his generation. His sister, Gwen John, was an equally talented artist.

Although well-known early in the century for his drawings and etchings, the bulk of John's later work consisted of portraits, some of the best of which were of his two wives and his children. He was known for the psychological insight in his portraits, many of which were considered "cruel" in the truth of the depiction. Lord Leverhulme was so upset with his portrait that he cut out the head and returned the rest of the picture. John painted many distinguished contemporaries, including Thomas Hardy, W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, the cellist Guilhermina Suggia, the Marchesa Casati and Elizabeth Bibesco. Perhaps his most famous portrait is of his fellow-countryman, Dylan Thomas.

During World War I, he was attached to the Canadian forces as a war artist and made a number of memorable portraits of Canadian infantrymen.

He was, throughout his life, particularly interested in the Roma people and sought them out on his frequent travels around the British Isles and Europe.

It was said that after the war his powers diminished as his bravura technique became sketchier and sketchier. However, from time to time his inspiration returned, as it did on his 1937 trip to Jamaica.

By his first wife, Ida Nettleship (1877-1907), he had five children, and by his mistress Dorothy "Dorelia" McNeill, who later became his second wife, he had two children. By Ian Fleming's mother, Evelyn St. Croix Rose Fleming, he had a daughter, Amaryllis Fleming (1925-1999), a noted cellist.

In old age, though John had ceased to be a moving force in British art, he was still greatly revered, as was demonstrated by the huge show of his work mounted by the Royal Academy in 1954. He continued to work up until his death in Fordingbridge, Hampshire in 1961.

Source: "Augustus John," Wikipedia, The free encyclopedia. December 21, 2005. http://www.wikipedia.org