David Gentleman facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
David Gentleman
RDI
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Mural at Charing Cross Underground Station
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David William Gentleman
11 March 1930 London, England
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| Education | Royal College of Art |
| Occupation | Artist and designer |
| Known for | Illustrations |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Children | 4, including Amelia |
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David William Gentleman (born 11 March 1930) is a famous English artist. He is known for his amazing illustrations, which include everything from huge murals to tiny postage stamps. He studied art at the Royal College of Art in London.
David Gentleman uses different art styles, like watercolour painting, lithography (a printing method), and wood engraving. His work often features landscapes, city scenes, and even designs for protest signs. He has also written and illustrated many books about different places.
About David Gentleman
David Gentleman was born in London and grew up in Hertford. His parents, Tom Gentleman and Winifred Gentleman, were both artists from Scotland. They met at the Glasgow School of Art.
After school, he did national service (a period of service in the armed forces) and then went to the Royal College of Art. He later became a freelance artist, meaning he worked for himself. Since 1956, he has lived and worked in Camden Town, London, and also in Huntingfield, Suffolk.
He has four children. One of his daughters, Amelia Gentleman, is a journalist for The Guardian newspaper. She is married to Jo Johnson, who is the brother of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
David Gentleman's art is displayed in many important museums. These include Tate Britain, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Imperial War Museum.
David Gentleman's Artworks
Watercolours and Drawings
David Gentleman loves to paint and draw landscapes, buildings, and people. He uses drawing a lot in his design work. Many of his watercolours show scenes from London, Suffolk, and other parts of Britain. He has also painted during his travels in France, Italy, and India.
His drawings and watercolours have been used on many different items. These include textiles, wallpapers, and even dinner plates for Wedgwood. His architectural drawings have appeared in popular magazines like House & Garden. His most recent watercolours were for his book My Town: An Artist’s Life in London, published in 2020.
Wood Engravings and the Underground Mural
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David Gentleman's early wood engravings were used for Penguin paperbacks and greeting cards. He also created 32 covers for the New Penguin Shakespeare series using wood engravings.
One of his most famous public artworks is a 100-meter-long mural at Charing Cross station in London. This mural was created in 1978 for London Transport. It shows, like a long comic strip, how medieval workers built the original Eleanor Cross. The mural features large wood-engraved images of stonemasons and sculptors. These images are twenty times bigger than real life and show people going about their daily work, just like today's passengers.
Books Written and Illustrated
Between 1982 and 1997, David Gentleman wrote and illustrated six travel books. These books were about Britain, London, Coastline, Paris, India, and Italy. More recently, he published London You’re Beautiful (2012), In the Country (2014), and My Town: An Artist’s Life in London (2020).
He also wrote and illustrated four books for children about a small child on holiday. These books were called Fenella in Ireland, Greece, Spain, and the South of France.
Illustrations for Other Books
David Gentleman has illustrated many books by other authors. For example, he drew pictures for the cookbook Plats du Jour. He also painted watercolours for Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay by George Ewart Evans.
He has illustrated classic books like The Swiss Family Robinson, The Jungle Book, and The Ballad of Robin Hood. He also illustrated several children's books, including Russell Hoban's The Dancing Tigers. For the Folio Society, he created illustrations for the Selected Poems of Edward Thomas. He designed many paperback covers for publishers like Penguin Books and Faber.
Stamps, Coins, and Logos
David Gentleman is famous for designing postage stamps. Between 1962 and 2000, he designed 103 stamps for the Post Office. This made him the most active stamp designer in Britain during that time.
His stamp designs include sets celebrating important figures and events. Some examples are Shakespeare, Churchill, Darwin, Concorde, the Battle of Britain, and the Battle of Hastings. He also designed stamps for Christmas and the Millennium.
He won the Phillips Gold Medal for postage stamp design twice, in 1969 and 1979. In 2022, the Royal Mail even released a set of six stamps celebrating David Gentleman's own designs!
He has also designed two coins for the Royal Mint. One coin celebrated 100 years of the Entente Cordiale (a friendly agreement between Britain and France) in 2004. The second coin, in 2007, marked 200 years since the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. He has also designed logos for places like the Bodleian Library and a new version of the National Trust's oak leaf symbol.
Posters
David Gentleman has designed many posters for public organizations. These include London Transport and the Imperial War Museum. In the 1970s, he created a series of unique posters for the National Trust. Some of these posters even won design awards.
In 2003, before the Iraq war began, David Gentleman designed a simple poster for the Stop the War Coalition that just said 'No'. This poster was carried during a protest march. He later designed other protest signs like 'No more lies'. In 2007, he created a huge art installation in Parliament Square. It showed 100,000 drops of blood, representing each person killed in the war. These bloodstains were printed on 1,000 sheets of card and spread out on the grass.
Lithographs and Screenprints
David Gentleman's first lithographs were posters for a Royal College of Art theatre group. He later created many lithographs of buildings and landscapes. These included scenes from Covent Garden, South Carolina, Bath, and Suffolk. These lithographs were printed in colour and showed realistic images.
In 1970, he also made six poster-like screenprints called Fortifications. Many of these artworks are now part of the collections at Tate Britain.
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions of Watercolours
David Gentleman has had many solo exhibitions (shows featuring only his work) of his watercolours. These include:
- India, Mercury Gallery, London, 1970.
- South Carolina, Mercury Gallery, London 1973.
- Kenya and Zanzibar, Mercury Gallery, London, 1976.
- Nauru and Samoa, Mercury Gallery, London, 1981.
- Britain, Mercury Gallery, London, 1982.
- London, Mercury Gallery, London, 1985.
- The British Coastline, Mercury Gallery, London, 1988.
- Paris, Mercury Gallery, London, 1991.
- India, Mercury Gallery, London, 1994.
- Italy, Mercury Gallery, London, 1987.
- City of London, Mercury Gallery, London, 2000.
- David Gentleman: from Andalusia to Zanzibar, Fine Art Society, 2004.
- Recent work, Fine Art Society, 2007.
- David Gentleman at eighty, Fine Art Society, 2010.
- David Gentleman: London, You're Beautiful, Fine Art Society, 2012.
- David Gentleman: In the Country, Fine Art Society, 2014.
- David Gentleman: My Town: An Artist’s Life in London, Patrick Bourne & Co, 2020.
Retrospective Exhibitions
Retrospective exhibitions look back at an artist's work over many years.
- Gentleman on Stamps, The British Postal Museum & Archive, London, 2009–2010.
- "The Kite Needs the String: the book illustration of David Gentleman", Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collections, 2010–2011.
