| Arrangement | TGA 779/1 Correspondence to John Banting, TGA 779/2 Letters and drafts by John Banting, TGA 779/3 Official, Legal and Financial documents, TGA 779/4 Address book and diaries, TGA 779/5 Writings by John Banting; Black book manuscript and illustrations, TGA 779/6 Original art work, book jackets and source material, TGA 779/7 Writings about John Banting, TGA 779/8 Photographs, TGA 779/9 Press cuttings, TGA 779/10 Private View Cards. |
| Administrative History | John Banting was born in 1902. He originally trained as a bank clerk while attending Bernard Meninsky's evening classes at Westminster School of Art. In 1922 he went to Paris to study and exhibited there with the Surindependants. He returned to London and worked in his father's bookbinding factory and later took a studio in London. He joined the London Group in 1927 and was invited to exhibit with the 7 & 5 Society in 1929. His first solo show was held at the Wertheim Gallery in 1931. A flamboyant figure, he exhibited regularly with the Surrealists, notably at the Great International exhibition of 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries in London and later the same year in the exhibition "Fantastic Art Surrealism Dada" at MOMA New York. During the 1930s he moved in a wide social circle including Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Edward Sackville-West, Edward Burra, Nancy Cunard, Brian Howard and James Stern. He travelled widely, including visits to America, where Harlem jazz inspired his "guitar-face" images, and to Spain during the civil war. He worked in a variety of media including oils and line drawings. He also produced cartoons and illustrations for left-wing publications, book jackets for Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press and stage designs. In 1939 he was the art director for Strand Films and art editor for the periodical 'Our Time'. His best work was produced before 1940, after which his output, although retaining its quality and his distinctive style, became irregular. After the second World War when his circle of friends had dispersed he lived in some poverty and obscurity, exhibiting only in 1971, the year before his death, when his work was included in a show of British Surrealism and a one man show, both at the Hamet Gallery. Banting died in 1972. |