First published in 1991, and reissued now in paperback by popular demand, this enchanting book chronicles the life and work of one of our finest realist painters. John Ward (born 1917) looks back on his life in a short but poignant memoir, describing his early years in Hereford where his father kept an antiques shop, and specialised in cleaning and restoring pictures. The family of seven lived above the shop, never particularly well off, but taking great delight in life, especially in such treats as boating on the River Wye. The young Ward was encouraged in his predilection for drawing and studied first at Hereford School of Arts and Crafts, and then in 1936 at the Royal College in London, where his teachers included Barnett Freedman and his contemporaries Robert Buhler and his lifelong friend Jehan Daly. When war came, Ward joined the Royal Engineers.
The writing is very visual and full of memorable images and idyllic moments, such as Ward’s postwar wandering through Herefordshire and the North Riding of Yorkshire drawing for travel guides. One of his better-known jobs was doing fashion drawings for Vogue for four years, a period when he met and befriended the photographer Norman Parkinson who he says taught him how to entertain the model. Keenly aware of his good fortune (‘a life that has been full of lucky breaks’) Ward has managed to live by his brush and pencil — eked out with a little teaching — by dint of hard work and much skill. (This is a man who lists his recreation in Who’s Who as ‘book illustration’, and who is celebrated for his drawings in Cider with Rosie.) He was never shy of commercial work, drawing for advertising and magazines, but would undertake other commissions, such as a mural for Challock church in Kent.
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