My father, John Wormell (latterly John Linsey), who has died aged 97, was a painter who labored for a few years as a senior lecturer in superb artwork at Hornsey School of Artwork in north London. He retired from the school at 56 to dedicate the remainder of his life to his personal work, producing a sequence of extremely individualistic work that recalled the landscapes of his youth as he had recorded them in his sketchbooks from the early Nineteen Fifties.
Inclined to shun the limelight, he was maybe out of sympathy with the up to date artwork world. He selected to not present his later work, concentrating solely on the enterprise of portray photos. These had been all the time extremely thought-about and no much less passionate or deeply felt for the time he took in making them.
Born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, John was the eldest of the three sons of Ernest, a tractor engineer, and Marjorie (nee Linsey), a milliner. After attending Queen Elizabeth’s highschool in Gainsborough he studied on the faculties of artwork in Lincoln after which Camberwell earlier than happening to the Royal School of Artwork, the place he was awarded the portray prize on the last yr present.
Although he was impressed by the educating of Edward Ardizzone, Edward Bawden, John Minton and John Nash, it was an exhibition of the works of Picasso and Matisse on the V&A within the late 40s that had profoundly affected his view of what portray was and might be.
His first educating job was at Leicester Artwork Faculty earlier than he went on to Hornsey School of Artwork, the place he labored throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, finally changing into head of portray. The pressures of educating, nevertheless, in addition to serving to to boost 9 kids, induced his personal work to stall considerably, and it was not till he retired to the borders of Scotland within the late 80s that inspiration was rekindled to marvellous impact.
He suffered no lack of his powers with advancing age and solely stopped working when the bodily act of placing brush to canvas grew to become too painful as a consequence of extreme curvature of the backbone. His final work, made simply three years earlier than his dying, had been as vibrant and masterful as something he had executed over the earlier 40.
His spouse, Teresa (nee Penfold), whom he married in 1953, died in April; my father adopted her six weeks later.
He’s survived by six sons and three daughters, 15 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
