Born in London, #JohnKnappFisher spent much of his youth in the Kentish countryside.  His father was professor of Architecture at the Royal College of Art.  John spent a great deal of time painting and drawing alongside is father.  Studies in graphic design and typography were followed by National Service.  John worked for a time in exhibition design and there followed set design for the Theatre Royal Margate and Castle Theatre Farnham.

He left the theatre business and went to live with his wife on a boat in East Anglia.  He did this for 5 years and painted full time.  The family then moved to Carmarthenshire in Wales.  John opened his studio gallery in Croesgoch on the St David’s peninsula, Pembrokeshire in 1967.  He is best known for his depictions of the coast of Pembrokeshire, West Wales.

The image to the left is that of All Saint’s Church, #Ramsholt in Suffolk.  It has a unique round tower with buttresses on the north; south and west.  It stands tranquil overlooking the River Deben with it’s beautifully tended churchyard full of flowers in the summer.  Painted in 1963, this would have been created when John lived on his boat in East Anglia.

John painted mostly in watercolour and oils.  He developed a style he called ‘dark and light’ with an eye for simple straight forward presentation of image.  John painted from his sketches and not from photographs and liked to paint every day to keep is eye and hand fresh.

A beautiful painting from a man with a singular eye and a gift of presentation.