John Craxton (1922-2009) was one of the great hopes of modern painting. Influenced by William Blake and Samuel Palmer, he was a youthful star of the neo-romantic movement of the 1940s.

An early encounter with Picasso’s Guernica and later Night Fishing in Antibes –would have the biggest impact on John Craxton “From Picasso I took danger. He made you walk a tightrope. He made you relook at nature and rethink what painting should be.

There is little doubt that had Craxton not chosen to escape to Greece, where he spent much of his life, we would be more familiar with his work, but it may never have shone with the Aegean light and people, which we now enjoy so much.

At John Craxton’s Memorial service, towards the end of his address Sir David Attenborough said….

“One of my great pleasures in life was to be taken by John to his favourite harbour-side restaurant on Crete and be given a dish of boiled sea creatures which even I, who am supposed to have some knowledge of the animal kingdom, found hard to identify”