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New Statesman
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
David Gentleman's pensées for the novice artist
David Gentleman. Courtesy of Pelican Books Among the 400 or so instructional letters sent by Lord Chesterfield to his illegitimate son in an attempt to school the young man in 'the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman' there is one, dated 1747, that touches on the importance of art. 'I find that you are a tolerably good landscape painter, and can present the several views of Switzerland to the curious,' he wrote, 'I am very glad of it, as it is a proof of some attention.' Attention, the nobleman thought, was the key attribute not just of art but of life itself, since 'the world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description'. Attention is also one of the elements stressed by the artist-designer David Gentleman in his own book of instruction, Lessons for Young Artists. Gentleman's is a more humble endeavour than Chesterfield's and is notable for its simplicity, but he too believes that to understand the world you need to be in it. He is now 95 and this charming, illustrated volume presents a distillation of some the wisdom gained during a near 80-year career. That span has seen him become one of Britain's most ubiquitous though least-known practitioners. On leaving the Royal College of Art in 1953 he set himself against teaching as a way of subsiding being an artist, as many of his peers did, and relied instead on commissions, for whatever was needed and wherever they came from. His first was for a set of wood engravings for a book called What About Wine? and, thanks to his versatility and inventiveness, they have kept coming. He hasn't always warmed to them, and one brief for an American company was, he later learned, for pesticides that had turned out to be poisonous for the farmers who used them. 'I realised that besides finding interesting and well-paid work, it ought to be responsible, too,' he notes. But, as he says in one of the short commentaries that explains each of his artistic nuggets, jobs are a necessity and, faced with a workaday task, 'I just had to get it done.' The reward, he says, was slow accumulation that eventually led to recognition and a reputation. Nevertheless, it was 20 years before he held an exhibition of his work. It helped that Gentleman was not just the son of two painters but was taught at the RCA by John Nash and Edward Bawden. It is a bloodline that links him directly to a group of figures who transformed British art in the first half of the 20th century, Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious among them. In the 1920s and 1930s the RCA was committed to the idea of allying art and design. Its principal, William Rothenstein, was determined to steer the students away from producing 'dreary imitations of Morris designs' and towards work that had a 'more alert spirit'. It was an ethos still prevalent when Gentleman studied there, and this heritage – and spirit – has long been apparent in his work. Indeed, Gentleman confesses that Bawden's influence in particular was in danger of becoming a little too insistent. When he noticed that there were echoes of his teacher cropping up in his own work, he 'consciously tried to avoid them'. This was not to denigrate Bawden but to make sure his own pictures were original rather than an imitation, however reverential. What makes Gentleman a significant figure is both the range and the quality of his work. He has found a form of artistic demotic that, certainly to Britons of a certain age, has a comfortable familiarity that nevertheless sparkles with imagination. Between 1962 and 2000, he created 103 stamps for the Post Office. His designs ranged from British trees, birds and building types to stamps commemorating the Battle of Britain, 50 years of the BBC, and the launch of Concorde. He has designed posters for London Transport and the National Trust and is responsible for a redesign of the Trust's oakleaf and acorn logo. He has created dustjackets for Faber & Faber and the New Penguin Shakespeare series – a staple for innumerable schoolchildren. He is responsible too for the platform murals at Charing Cross Tube Station showing the building of the Eleanor Cross, a 13th century stone monument; the commission came in 1975 with no brief from London Transport other than 'it had to explain how Charing Cross got its name'. He responded with a bande dessinée of 'medieval' wood engravings that were then expanded to life size. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Perhaps his most untypical work was with the placards he designed for the Stop the War Coalition following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Using a typographical 'No' spattered with blood, he took advice from Tony Benn, whom he had first met when the latter served as postmaster general and Gentleman started designing stamps. For good measure, Gentleman was responsible for coming up with the 'Bliar' slogan too. So the guidance here comes from a long-lived and engaged mind. What Gentleman offers is the antidote to swathes of contemporary art-think and -speak. There is no talk in his book about 'meaning' or 'profundity', much less the wilful obfuscation and vapidity of much contemporary and conceptual art. Instead he proffers modest advice that in less authentic hands would be mere cracker-barrel slogans. Start with a pencil, he counsels, and draw quickly and then you'll get the essentials without being distracted by detail; sketch whatever is to hand; embrace the accidents of watercolour; return to motifs in different weathers and times of day; choose unlikely angles; look up. Attention, attention, attention. His pensées may not be worthy of Montesquieu but they are straightforward and have a validity that is applicable beyond the mere making of images: 'Keep your expectations slight'; 'Just get on with it'; 'You don't have to like, or be good at, everything'. And he accompanies these crisp strictures with a generous helping of his own pictures – drawings in pencil, pen and ink, wood engravings and lithographs, commercial designs and fully fledged watercolours, many from his travels. Some are from his patch of Camden Town in London (as in the view of Euston and King's Cross from the Regent's Canal, pictured above) and others are of the unshowy Suffolk countryside around the cottage he has owned for more than 40 years in a village ten miles from the coast. These pictures are invariably endearing, both observant and skilled, and, in his more considered watercolours, full of detail too. Part of their appeal is that they show a man in tune with the craft tradition; his are indisputably hand-eye works. And while David Gentleman must have looked into his soul many times over the years, he is far too good natured and well mannered to bother the viewer with what he has found there. Art, for him, is not knotted self-expression, revelation or provocation: 'We make art because it is interesting,' he says. It is not highfalutin, but it is a better definition than many. Lessons for Young Artists David Gentleman Particular Books, 192pp, £20 Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from who support independent bookshops [See more: Samuel Pepys's diary of a somebody] Related
Irish Times
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
David Gentleman's Lessons for Young Artists: advice for living well, for people of all ages
Lessons for Young Artists Author : David Gentleman ISBN-13 : 978-0241692813 Publisher : Particular Books Guideline Price : £20 Is art a mysterious manifestation? Are artists somehow different, living strange and rarefied lives? How does a work of art come about at all? For David Gentleman, it is a simple question of just doing it. 'We make art because it's interesting, and it keeps us in touch with reality. And you get better if you stick at it,' he writes in the introduction to Lessons for Young Artists. He also mentions the often forgotten insight that 'art should be enjoyable'. But do you have to be young to appreciate this book? Most people would be young these days to Gentleman, who turned 95 this year, and has been drawing daily for nine decades. In fact, you need to be neither technically youthful or even have aspirations to a career as artist to benefit from this quietly, yet richly wise book. An engraver, stamp designer , book illustrator, polemic poster maker and painter, Gentleman is the unassuming face behind many images you may know surprisingly well. There is the series of Penguin Shakespeare book covers from the 1970s, the platform murals at Charing Cross Underground Station, and the iconic Stop the War Coalition poster from 2003, as well as his more personal paintings and drawings. READ MORE Alongside illustrations of all these are the 'lessons', and the book could equally be called Advice for Living Well, or even How Not to be Bored. For Gentleman, art is a practice of looking closely at things, of giving up perfectionism, of trying over and over again, of self-forgiveness and trust, and also of ethics – such as the time he declined a lucrative Post Office stamp design commission because Margaret Thatcher disapproved of his industry-critical approach. Detailed – although not exhaustively, or exhaustingly – under headings such as 'start small', 'travel light', 'don't put work off' and 'try and look at a subject from different angles'; a picture emerges of how to live a creative life in a world full of distractions and false goals. He is also spot on about dealing with procrastination: 'Sometimes,' he writes, 'you can feel so anxious about getting it right that you are reluctant to start.' Lessons for life, and plenty of good advice for young artists too.
The Guardian
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Lessons for Young Artists by David Gentleman review – secrets from the studio
You know the art of David Gentleman even if you don't know you know it. Anyone who's passed through London's Charing Cross tube station has seen his life-filled black-and-white mural of medieval people, enlarged from his woodcuts, digging, hammering, chiselling to construct the Eleanor Cross that once stood nearby. His graphic art has graced everything from stamps to book covers to Stop the War posters in a career spanning seven decades. He says he's been making art for 90 years, since he was five. His parents were also artists, and in his latest book he reproduces a Shell poster by his father to show he follows in a modern British tradition of well-drawn, well-observed popular art. Perhaps it is because he learned from his parents as naturally as learning to speak – 'Seeing them drawing tempted me to draw' – that Gentleman dislikes pedagogy. He's proud that he never had to teach for a living, always selling his art. So his guide to the creative life, Lessons for Young Artists, is anything but a how-to manual or didactic textbook. Instead, it's like a visit to his studio where you sit at his shoulder, watching him work, while he shares tips, wisdom, anecdotes. If you have ever wished to take up pencil and paper, whatever your age, this book will sharpen your ambition by demystifying the process, making it feel the most natural and important thing in the world to draw that tree outside the window. The book's beautiful illustrations deepen his laconic advice. As he chats, the artist rifles through drawers to show views of London, Paris, New York. 'Rifling' is possibly the wrong word, for it suggests a chaotic workplace, of which Gentleman does not approve. You should keep your brushes in good nick and your studio tidy. Then again there are no rules, he admits, remembering how Edward Ardizzone used to work at the kitchen table surrounded by his family. The artist's workspace may seem a secondary issue but he's not alone in stressing it: Leonardo da Vinci paid attention to what an artist's room should be like in advice to young hopefuls written more than 500 years ago. In one of Gentleman's engrossing, calming drawings, his studio has a big window looking out on the city, designs on clipboards neatly hung up, a row of brushes, a couple of glasses of water (for watercolours). It's a workplace to envy, peaceful yet connected with the world. This is really a guide not just to the technical skills an artist needs but achieving an artistic state of mind. Gentleman lures you into his day-to-day work. 'Take a sketchbook with you everywhere you go,' he says, again like Leonardo, adding that it should be pocket-sized and the accompanying tools minimal. Too heavy a kit will 'become an excuse not to take it with you'. He adds watercolour to his drawings, either in the studio or in the open. A Suffolk church is seen through overgrown late summer weeds, with watery blotches in the sky. It started to rain as he worked: 'I like the way the spatters of rain are visible on the paper.' Another happy accident is a drawing of his son playing the piano that acquired an extra foot: a burst of motion in an otherwise tranquil scene. You find yourself not just wanting to be an artist but to be David Gentleman. 'Becoming an artist,' he says, 'is about learning to look at the world with a very sharp eye. When you walk down the street, try to pause and notice your surroundings.' On the facing page is a watercolour shot through with sunlight of the now-gone King's Cross gasometers, by a trashy canalside, ducks floating on the silver-touched water. Finding beauty in the neglected, unnoticed moments that pass us by is a lesson that can be applied to anyone's life, 'Young Artist' or not. This is diamond advice, lightly given. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Lessons for Young Artists by David Gentleman is published by Particular (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at
Times
28-06-2025
- Times
Ten essential tips on how to draw, by a leading British artist
The English artist and designer David Gentleman, 95, has been drawing, painting, illustrating and engraving for more than eight decades. He still sketches every day without fail, looking out from his studio window in central London, or walking at home or abroad with a sketchbook, a pencil, a paintbox and a few brushes packed into a small bag. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1953, he has completed hundreds of commissions — among them the National Trust's oak-leaf logo, the 1970s New Penguin Shakespeare paperbacks, the 100m-long mural at Charing Cross Underground station (1978), dozens of stamps and travel books. Here, he shares his advice on developing a drawing habit for life. How to begin? This is one of the most difficult questions. I would always start small, choosing something nearby to draw — a tree or the view from the window. Keep your expectations slight. And begin with a pencil — a soft pencil is easiest and lightest, although light or hard graphite pencils or charcoal sticks are worth trying out. Have a go at what catches your eye. For me, that's barns and trees; light and dark; near and far — just a few lines to suggest distance. The most valuable thing about drawing is that it makes you look harder at the world around you. It enhances your power of attention. I like going out on foot and drawing what I see on the street, things like cranes, curved streets, canals, trees and traffic. But it's important to vary it from time to time. It may sound mundane, but even taking a bus ride can be fruitful. If you sit at the front of the top deck and take in your surroundings from this higher vantage point, you have the whole landscape ahead and you'll see things — buildings, trees, the skyline, people — in a new light. A scene doesn't have to be picturesque to make a good picture. Juxtapositions are interesting; prettifying a scene isn't. It isn't about trying to make something beautiful. For example, the duomo at Monreale in Sicily is a wonderful spectacle, and drawing it was the perfect way of enjoying and gradually understanding the complicated patterns of its structure. A Fiat parked in the foreground wasn't exactly majestic, but it struck me as an expression of Italy's more recent industrial strength. On display were two kinds of Italian brilliance. • The power of the pencil — by Hockney, Emin, Gormley and more Mistakes come in all shapes and sizes, but they aren't to be feared. Often they are reversible: with oils, you can paint over what you've done. With pencils it's much the same. With pen and ink or watercolour you have to be more careful. But even if your line looks wrong, it's still worth keeping it going bit by bit: the work grows as you add to it, and that can take care of any mistakes. Once, when my son was playing the piano, I decided to draw him quickly. I drew three feet, but the one in the middle wasn't worth rubbing out: it added a sense of motion. Generally, it's worth not messing around. Eventually, you'll find that your 'style' — the result of all your small choices, experiments and mistakes — will emerge. I've never had any interest in consciously developing a style. I'm not even sure it is something you can decide to generate. It just happens: you evolve over time. So it's worth trying to be single-minded, energetic and yourself. When I began using watercolours, I found new ways to paint and draw through doing it regularly and experimenting. Memorably, this happened in 1995 in Bologna, when I was sitting in a café, slightly raised above the main square. I was alone, having a glass of beer and facing the duomo. It was a wonderful view. The square was full of life. I wanted to capture it — but nobody was standing still. I began a pen drawing. It had to be done very quickly. I couldn't have painted it. If I didn't move fast, the people I was drawing would be blocked off or disappear. Afterwards I added a colour wash (a little paint added to water): you can see it is slightly bigger than the drawings. This way of working has become one of the styles I most enjoy. • Read more art reviews, guides and interviews It's perfectly possible to take a photo of a scene and then spend hours back at home drawing it. But I think it's good to draw on the spot — scribbling what you see, before the moment passes. There are many more possibilities that arise when you do this; the scene changes, new people come past and new details come into view. There's also a liberation, a release, that happens when you work quickly. I think you often get better work this way. You don't have to draw particularly carefully to capture what you're after — you can do it in almost no time at all. You can spoil work by being too careful. I was once in Rio de Janeiro for just two days, and looked at the city from my hotel window. It was too tempting not to draw. The height of everything made me draw it on a vertical sheet of paper. The street at my feet was in deep shadow, while the cliff was gleaming. Had I seen it on a different day it might not have spurred me to draw the scene: it was the sun, there and then, that made me work. I've spent 50 years looking out of the same studio window, at the top of my house, five storeys up. I like the trees in front of me, and the parakeets and pigeons that land on them, as well as the crows and seagulls that float in circles above them and the Victorian and Edwardian architecture beyond them too. These views have changed over time: all the distant skylines have vanished as new buildings have got taller. But I'm interested every day in the changing weather, the clouds moving across the sky. Most days, a crow perches on the birch tree, usually on its own. One day, I quickly drew a pen and wash watercolour sketch and was pleased with the results — particularly the curve of its talons. After I graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1953, my first professional commission was a set of wood engravings for a book called What About Wine? I'd been interested in engraving ever since my father gave me a book of Eric Ravilious's work when I was about 17. The commission was a success, and I got more for engravings, but it's a laborious process and my enthusiasm for it has varied. So I have engraved only when I felt it was worth taking on, and have enjoyed it all the more for doing it in my own way, in my own style. I particularly liked engraving the complete New Penguin Shakespeare series in the 1970s, combining wood engravings with colour. Negative feedback can alert you to something you might not otherwise have noticed, and often there is something you can do to put it right. It's important to develop a capacity to be self-critical, because that's how you will gradually get your work closer to how you intended it to be. I seldom feel complacent about what I'm doing; this self-criticism is part of the continual process of working out how to do things better. One chilly February, I made some pictures of the Piazza del Campo in Siena, drawing in pen and ink as quickly as possible. I wanted to capture the piazza's overall D-shape, and kept drawing and redrawing until I felt happy with the outcome. I spent two days working like this. It can't be wished on you. Don't worry — just do what you can. I don't waste time thinking about how good or bad a drawing is. When I'm at work on a picture, I hope it will end up interesting, and I try to enjoy the process. That's about for Young Artists by David Gentleman is published on Jul 10 (Penguin £20 pp192). To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members What's your advice on developing a drawing habit? Share your tips in the comments below
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Lessons for Young Artists by David Gentleman review – secrets from the studio
You know the art of David Gentleman even if you don't know you know it. Anyone who's passed through London's Charing Cross tube station has seen his life-filled black-and-white mural of medieval people, enlarged from his woodcuts, digging, hammering, chiselling to construct the Eleanor Cross that once stood nearby. His graphic art has graced everything from stamps to book covers to Stop the War posters in a career spanning seven decades. He says he's been making art for 90 years, since he was five. His parents were also artists, and in his latest book he reproduces a Shell poster by his father to show he follows in a modern British tradition of well-drawn, well-observed popular art. Perhaps it is because he learned from his parents as naturally as learning to speak – 'Seeing them drawing tempted me to draw' – that Gentleman dislikes pedagogy. He's proud that he never had to teach for a living, always selling his art. So his guide to the creative life, Lessons for Young Artists, is anything but a how-to manual or didactic textbook. Instead, it's like a visit to his studio where you sit at his shoulder, watching him work, while he shares tips, wisdom, anecdotes. If you have ever wished to take up pencil and paper, whatever your age, this book will sharpen your ambition by demystifying the process, making it feel the most natural and important thing in the world to draw that tree outside the window. The book's beautiful illustrations deepen his laconic advice. As he chats, the artist rifles through drawers to show views of London, Paris, New York. 'Rifling' is possibly the wrong word, for it suggests a chaotic workplace, of which Gentleman does not approve. You should keep your brushes in good nick and your studio tidy. Then again there are no rules, he admits, remembering how Edward Ardizzone used to work at the kitchen table surrounded by his family. The artist's workspace may seem a secondary issue but he's not alone in stressing it: Leonardo da Vinci paid attention to what an artist's room should be like in advice to young hopefuls written more than 500 years ago. In one of Gentleman's engrossing, calming drawings, his studio has a big window looking out on the city, designs on clipboards neatly hung up, a row of brushes, a couple of glasses of water (for watercolours). It's a workplace to envy, peaceful yet connected with the world. This is really a guide not just to the technical skills an artist needs but achieving an artistic state of mind. Gentleman lures you into his day-to-day work. 'Take a sketchbook with you everywhere you go,' he says, again like Leonardo, adding that it should be pocket-sized and the accompanying tools minimal. Too heavy a kit will 'become an excuse not to take it with you'. He adds watercolour to his drawings, either in the studio or in the open. A Suffolk church is seen through overgrown late summer weeds, with watery blotches in the sky. It started to rain as he worked: 'I like the way the spatters of rain are visible on the paper.' Another happy accident is a drawing of his son playing the piano that acquired an extra foot: a burst of motion in an otherwise tranquil scene. You find yourself not just wanting to be an artist but to be David Gentleman. 'Becoming an artist,' he says, 'is about learning to look at the world with a very sharp eye. When you walk down the street, try to pause and notice your surroundings.' On the facing page is a watercolour shot through with sunlight of the now-gone King's Cross gasometers, by a trashy canalside, ducks floating on the silver-touched water. Finding beauty in the neglected, unnoticed moments that pass us by is a lesson that can be applied to anyone's life, 'Young Artist' or not. This is diamond advice, lightly given. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Lessons for Young Artists by David Gentleman is published by Particular (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at
