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"Art is never ending, life is short."
Roy Turner Durrant (4 October 1925 – 1998) was a 20th-century English abstract artist. He was born in Lavenham, Suffolk, England on 4 October 1925. He had a love of drawing from an early age which continued as a driving force throughout his life. His lifelong motto (which he inscribed on the fly leaf of many a volume of his childhood library) was "ars longa, vita brevis" "art is never ending, life is short" which he may have first seen in the bell tower of Lavenham Church, and following his wish was also carved on his tombstone in Lavenham cemetery.
He had a picture exhibited at Bury St Edmunds while still at school and his drawings were currency for him at school when he swapped them with class mates for cigarette cards and other items. He had his first One Man Exhibition in 1948 at the Guildhall, Lavenham.
He left school at 14 years of age but continued to spend his spare time drawing and painting. He worked in a local electrical shop and during the war Durrant joined the Suffolk Regiment (1944 to 1947). After the war he secured a place at Camberwell College of Arts where he was taught by amongst others by Edward Ardizzone Michael Rothenstein Keith Vaughan and John Buckland Wright. and was a contemporary of Theodore Mendez. Whilst at Camberwell he was already exhibiting his paintings in London galleries. His work moved from early landscape and architectural interest to abstraction but with a great variety of style and technique.
"Art is never ending, life is short."
Roy Turner Durrant (4 October 1925 – 1998) was a 20th-century English abstract artist. He was born in Lavenham, Suffolk, England on 4 October 1925. He had a love of drawing from an early age which continued as a driving force throughout his life. His lifelong motto (which he inscribed on the fly leaf of many a volume of his childhood library) was "ars longa, vita brevis" "art is never ending, life is short" which he may have first seen in the bell tower of Lavenham Church, and following his wish was also carved on his tombstone in Lavenham cemetery.
He had a picture exhibited at Bury St Edmunds while still at school and his drawings were currency for him at school when he swapped them with class mates for cigarette cards and other items. He had his first One Man Exhibition in 1948 at the Guildhall, Lavenham.
He left school at 14 years of age but continued to spend his spare time drawing and painting. He worked in a local electrical shop and during the war Durrant joined the Suffolk Regiment (1944 to 1947). After the war he secured a place at Camberwell College of Arts where he was taught by amongst others by Edward Ardizzone Michael Rothenstein Keith Vaughan and John Buckland Wright. and was a contemporary of Theodore Mendez. Whilst at Camberwell he was already exhibiting his paintings in London galleries. His work moved from early landscape and architectural interest to abstraction but with a great variety of style and technique.
