13 Facts About Denton Welch

Maurice Denton Welch was a British writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions.

The youngest of four sons, Denton Welch, was sent to a boarding school at the age of 11, after his mother died from wasting kidney disease.

Denton Welch spent part of his pre-school childhood in China, and returned for a longer spell after he left Repton.

Denton Welch recorded this episode in his fictionalised autobiography, Maiden Voyage.

At the age of 20, Denton Welch was hit by a car while cycling in Surrey and suffered a fractured spine.

Denton Welch was temporarily paralysed, and suffered severe pain and bladder complications, including pyelonephritis, and spinal tuberculosis that ultimately led to his early death.

In July 1936, Denton Welch rented an apartment with his friend and housekeeper Evelyn Sinclair in Tonbridge so that he could be close to his doctor, John Easton.

The philosopher Maurice Cranston, who had known him since his teens observed that Denton Welch was as unforgiving in depictions of himself as he was of others.

Denton Welch later failed to sell a painting of Lord Berners to its subject, but the experience generated a short story.

In May 1945, Denton Welch restored an 18th-century Georgian doll's house from 1783, which was given to him by his friend Mildred Bosanquet.

Opinions on Denton Welch's artworks have varied widely: amongst his biographers, Michael De-la-Noy and James Methuen-Campbell consider him to be underrated; in Robert Phillips' view his paintings are "lightweight" and his drawings "fussy and shallow".

The appropriateness of Denton Welch's alleged solipsism, at a time when the world was in turmoil, appears as a factor in some reviews; the poet Randall Swingler went so far as to remark on the comparatively commonplace fact of Denton Welch's early death, being, as it was, only one of many at the time.

Denton Welch built too many barricades and enclosed the range of his understanding.