Born in London, David Gentleman studied at the Royal College of Art under Edward Bawden and John Nash. As artist, illustrator, designer and author, Gentleman’s work is part of the collections at the Tate Britain, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Design Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum.

This atmospheric watercolour shows the Thames and Glovers Island from Richmond Hill, delicately clothed in the mist of a cold winter’s day. The river’s bend, as it meanders through South West London, represents a glimpse of the city which Gentleman has celebrated in his publications, David Gentleman’s London (1985) and My Town (2020). 

At the boarder of metropolis, Richmond offers a bucolic refuge which the artist is particularly attracted to: ‘This is a lovely place to walk and draw: an undulating prairie with fine oaks scattered or in clumps of thick woodland. In the magnificent views, London seems much further away than it does on the Heath. […] I like the way the woods spread over the uneven curves and hummocks of the landscape, losing their individuality as they become a single meandering whole.’