15 Facts About Percy Horton

Percy Frederick Horton MA, RBA, ARCA was an English painter and art teacher, and Ruskin Master of Drawing, University of Oxford from 1949 to 1964.

Horton was one of three brothers born into a working-class family in Brighton; his father, Percy Horton, was a bus conductor and his mother, Ellen, had worked in service and as a nurse.

Percy Horton's mother was instrumental in encouraging her sons' education, and all three received scholarships to Brighton Municipal Secondary School.

Percy Horton attended the Brighton School of Art between 1912 and 1916, again with a scholarship, where he gained a distinction in the Department of Education Drawing Examination.

Percy Horton had become a socialist and a member of the Labour Party through the influence of the Labour Leader, the anti-war weekly publication of the Independent Labour Party.

Percy Horton was court-martialled twice more before his release, on grounds of serious ill-health, "to the care of his friends", in December 1917.

Percy Horton resigned from Rugby in 1922 to continue his art studies at the Royal College of Art, then under the auspices of the new principal William Rothenstein, where he was awarded a solo Royal Exhibition and passed the Department of Education Examination in Painting with distinction.

Percy Horton was awarded the ARCA Diploma with Distinction in Painting, and the RCA Drawing Prize for 1924.

Percy Horton joined The Working Men's College as a teacher of art under its new Director of Art Classes, James Laver, having been recommended by Rothenstein.

Percy Horton had begun to teach at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford in 1933, but when the RCA relocated to Ambleside during Second World War he found travel between Ambleside and Oxford difficult; consequently he resigned from Ruskin.

Also during World War II, Percy Horton received a number of short-term commissions from the War Artists' Advisory Committee to paint portraits of civil defense staff and civilian factory workers.

In 1947 he, with Paul Hogarth, Laurence Scarfe and Ronald Searle, was invited to Yugoslavia to observe and record a 150-mile railway being built through voluntary labour; Percy Horton drew the leading figures of the project.

Percy Horton's interest had begun to lie in portraiture and landscape.

Percy Horton left his post as Ruskin's Master of Drawing in 1964 and moved to Lewes, from where he taught part-time at the Sir John Cass School and Hastings School of Art, while concentrating on his own work and frequently visiting Provence.

Percy Horton's work is held in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery, Tate, Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, and the Arts Council.