David Gentleman

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My Town

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An Artist's Life in London

David Gentleman, an iconic British illustrator and designer, has lived a lifetime in London. Drawing from over sixty years of engagement with this most well-known capital city, My Town presents London as it was and as it is today. His beautiful and intricate work - of the Thames, Hampstead Heath, Camden Town (where David Gentleman has lived in the same house for fifty years), London's parks and sights - offers us the pleasure of looking again at the everyday. Accompanied by reflections on the work of an artist, commentary on the possibilities of ink, pen and paint and personal thoughts on the ever-changing city, this is a delight for all those who flock to London.

David Gentleman has lived in London for almost seventy years, most of it on the same street. This book is a record of a lifetime spent observing, drawing and getting to know the city, bringing together work from across his whole career, from his earliest sketches to watercolours painted just a few months ago. 
 
Here is London as it was, and as it is today: the Thames, Hampstead Heath; the streets, canals, markets and people of his home of Camden Town; and at the heart of it all, his studio and the tools of his work. Accompanied by reflections on the process of drawing and personal thoughts on the ever-changing city, this is a celebration of London, and the joy of noticing, looking and capturing the world. 
 
'David has spent a lifetime depicting with wit and affection a London he has made his own' Alan Bennett 
 
 'He delivers a poetry of exultant concentration ... The surface fusion of the sensuous and the sharply modern is echoed by Gentleman's imagery' Guardian 
 
 'The artist and illustrator has been responsible for some of the most-seen public artworks in this country' The Times 
 
 'Perhaps the last of the great polymath designer-painters' Camden New Journal

David Gentleman has lived in London for almost seventy years, most of it on the same street. This book is a record of a lifetime spent observing, drawing and getting to know the city, bringing together work from across his whole career, from his earliest sketches to watercolours painted just a few months ago. Here is London as it was, and as it is today: the Thames, Hampstead Heath; the streets, canals, markets and people of his home of Camden Town; and at the heart of it all, his studio and the tools of his work. Accompanied by reflections on the process of drawing and personal thoughts on the ever-changing city, this is a celebration of London, and the joy of noticing, looking and capturing the world.

David Gentleman is a painter and printmaker, working in many mediums. His work is held in many major galleries, including Tate, the V&amp;A and the British Museum. He has designed British postage stamps and coins, and the platform-length mural at Charing Cross on the underground. His studio is at the top of an early Victorian house in Camden Town between crowded, rackety Camden Lock and the green spaces of Regent's Park and Primrose Hill.

My Town

An Artist's Life in London

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