Attributed to John Francis Minton, no coa, private collection, medium: oil, measurements:41'WX29"H framed, good condition Biography: Francis John Minton was an English painter, illustrator, stage designer and teacher. After studying in France, he became a teacher in London, and at the same time maintained a consistently large output of works.From 1943 to 1946 Minton taught illustration at the Camberwell College of Arts, and from 1946 to 1948 he was in charge of drawing and illustration at the Central School of Art and Design. At the same time he continued to draw and paint, sharing a studio for some years with Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, and later with Keith Vaughan.Reviewing a 1944 exhibition, The Times remarked that Minton was clearly in the tradition of Samuel Palmer,something frequently remarked on by later critics. Minton's output was considerable. Between 1945 and 1956 he had seven solo exhibitions at the Lefevre Gallery, notwithstanding his work as tutor to the painting school of the Royal College of Art in 1949, a post that he held until the year before his death. Minton's appearance in this period is shown in a 1952 portrait by Lucian Freud, as well as in self-portraits. In the 1940s he, Freud and fellow artist Adrian Ryan had been in a homosexual love triangle. Every living person has certain feelings about the world around him. It is these feelings, common to all men, which are the raw materials of the artist's inspiration. This he must 'translate', into the structure of an art form, whether music, poetry or painting. The problem of the painter is this 'translation'; that is, he has to create some arrangement of shape, line and colour which convey the idea or the emotion which moved him to paint this particular picture.John Minton, 1949Minton's range was wide. Although he is best remembered as an illustrator, he also worked on a very large scale, with unusually big paintings for the Dome of Discovery at the Festival of Britain and "two vast set-pieces" for the Royal College of Art,and at the Royal Academy a huge painting of the soldiers dicing for the garment of Jesus, described by The Manchester Guardian as "one of the most elaborate and serious paintings with a religious theme produced since the war."He designed textiles and wallpapers;he produced posters for London Transport and Ealing Studios; and he was highly regarded as a portrait painter.He also worked in collage. He painted scenes of Britain, from rural beauty to urban decay, and travelled overseas, producing scenes of the West Indies, Spain and Morocco. The Times wrote, "Even when they were ostensibly of Spain and Jamaica, Minton's landscapes looked back to Samuel Palmer for their mood. They were densely patterned and luxuriantly coloured, and it was always the fullness and richness of the scene which attracted his eye and which he painted with such evident enjoyment."