John Minton (1917-1957)

Rotherhithe from Wapping

Minton studied at the St John's Wood School of Art and with fellow student Michael Ayrton became interested in Neo-Romantic painters working in France. Minton was a key figure in the English Neo-Romantic movement, which continued a vein of British landscape painting reaching back to Samuel Palmer, but was marked by a much darker atmosphere prompted by the threat of war.

Rotherhithe from Wapping is one of several paintings Minton made just after the war based around the Thames at Southwark. This view of the river in summertime has a stronger, brighter range of colour that contrasts with his sombre wartime ink drawings. Picasso's influence can be seen in the flattened form of the boat and the patterns of the buildings on the opposite bank.

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