John Banting (12 May 1902 – 30 January 1972) was an English

Surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

artist and writer associated with the Bloomsbury Group, whose left-wing philosophy was reflected in much of his work. According to his ''Times'' obituary, he was "an artist who adopted surrealist conventions for satirical purposes". Anthony Powell regarded him as "the only true English Surrealist painter".

Education and Bloomsbury

Born in Chelsea, Banting was educated at Chipping Campden School and initially influenced by vorticism. From 1921 he attended art classes at Vincent Square art school under Bernard Meninsky, and later at the free academies in Paris. By 1925, he had his own studio in Fitzroy Street.Matthew Gale. ''John Banting 1902-1972''
biography for Tate Modern (1997) He joined the

London Group The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...

and exhibited at the Seven and Five Society.'John Banting', ''Benezit Dictionalry of Artists'' (2011)
/ref> Banting first gained wider notice in the 1920s through his work on book jackets with

Leonard Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English language, English masculine given name and a surname. The given name and surname originate from the Old High German ''Leonhard'' containing the prefix ''levon'' ("lion") from the Greek wikt:Λέων#Greek, Λ ...

and

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing Imprint (trade name), imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in London Boro ...

, and also as the designer of the ballet set for Constant Lambert's ''Pomona'' (1926) at the

Cambridge Theatre The Cambridge Theatre is a West End theatre, on a corner site in Earlham Street facing Seven Dials, London, Seven Dials, in the London Borough of Camden, built in 1929–30 for Bertie Meyer on an "irregular triangular site". Design and const ...

. He also provided the cover for the score of ''Pomona'', and for Lambert's later choral work '' The Rio Grande'' in 1929. While in Paris in 1930 he met some of the key figures of the surrealist movement, and their influence was reflected in his 1931 exhibition at the Wertheim Gallery.

Surrealism and activism

He contributed to the London International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936 and worked on various projects, commercial and artistic, ranging from an advertisement for Shell Oil to sets and costumes for the Camargo Society ballet ''Prometheus'' (1936) at Sadler's Wells. In 1938 he was invited to contribute to the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in Paris by Marcel Duchamp, and this led to a solo surrealist exhibition at the Storran Gallery in October 1938. Michael Robinson has pointed to the satire of form and formality as a key aspect of his work. Banting's association with Nancy Cunard and the poet Brian Howard marked his increasing political awareness. He visited

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...

with Cunard in 1931 to investigate racial politics and civil rights, and contributed poems to her ''Negro Anthology'' (1935). Also with Cunard he visited Spain in October 1937 during the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

, attempting to join the (then disbanding) International Brigade in Madrid and meeting Ernest Hemmingway. The following year he was arrested in

Innsbruck Innsbruck (; ) is the capital of Tyrol (federal state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the Wipptal, Wipp Valley, which provides access to the ...

, attempting to intervene during the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

. He was a central figure influencing the increasingly left-wing political stance of the British Surrealist Group in the pre-war period. During the war he worked as an art director for the Ministry of Information's Strand Films unit alongside Dylan Thomas and Curtis Moffat, while also acting as art editor for the left wing monthly magazine ''Our Time'', and contributing to Nancy Cunard's anthology ''Salvo for Russia'' (1942).

Post-war

After the war Banting found himself struggling to make a living, but was helped by a grant from the Artists Benevolent Fund, organised by his friend Julian Trevelyan who dubbed him "the eternal outsider".'John Banting, Surrealism'
Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries One continuing outlet for his art after the war was book jacket design. In 1946, he published ''A Blue Book of Conversation'', a collection of illustrated satirical poems. In the 1950s he moved to Rye, East Sussex, near to his friend Edward Burra. He later moved on to

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

, where he spent much of his time writing. He died there in January 1972, aged 69, just as a solo exhibition at London's Hamet Gallery was reviving interest in his work.John Banting, Hamet Gallery catalogue, London, Dec. 1971 There was a posthumous exhibition at the Edward Harvane Gallery in March 1972.

Works

* ''Figure with Heart'', 1930 * ''Explosion'', 1931 *''Snake in The Grass'', 1931 *''Triplets'', 1932 * ''Her Ladyship Rewarded'', 1933 *''One Man Band'', 1934 * ''Negro Guitarist'', 1935 * ''Seven Figured Exercise'', 1940 Selected book jackets * E.M. Forster. ''A letter to Madan Blanchard'' (Hogarth Press, 1931) * Christopher Isherwood. ''Memorial: Portrait of a Family'' (Hogarth Press, 1932) * John Lehmann. ''The Noise of History'' (Hogarth Press, 1934) * Osbert Sitwell and Margaret Barton. ''Brighton'' (Faber & Faber, 1935) * Fritz Faulkner. ''Windless Sky'' (Hogarth Press, 1936) *

Naomi Mitchison Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison (; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote more than 90 books of historical an ...

and Richard Crossman. ''Socrates'' (Hogarth Press, 1937) *

Henry Green Henry Green was the pen name of Henry Vincent Yorke (29 October 1905 – 13 December 1973), an English writer best remembered for the novels ''Party Going'', ''Living (novel), Living,'' and ''Loving (novel), Loving''. He published a total of n ...

. ''Party Going'' (Hogarth Press, 1939) * Julian MacLaren-Ross. ''Bitten by the Tarantula'' ((Allan Wingate, 1945) * Julian MacLaren-Ross. ''The Nine Men of Soho'' (Allan Wingate, 1946) * Lawrence Evelyn Jones. ''A La Carte'' (Secker & Warburg, 1951) * Philip Toynbee. ''The Garden to the Sea'' (Macgibbon & Kee, 1953) * Bernard Gutteridge. ''The Agency Game'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1954) * Speed Lamkin. ''The Easter Egg Hunt'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1954) * Mario Rigoni Stern. ''The Sergeant in the Snow'' (Macgibbon & Kee, 1954)

References

External links

John Banting on ArtnetTate Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Banting, John 20th-century English painters English male painters English surrealist artists 1902 births 1971 deaths People educated at Emanuel School Painters from London Writers from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English male artists People from Chelsea, London