Art UK has updated its cookies policy. By using this website you are agreeing to the use of cookies. To find out more read our updated Use of Cookies policy and our updated Privacy policy.

Painter and poet, born in Lavenham, Suffolk. After a childhood addiction to drawing aeroplanes, he did war service in the Army, then attended Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, 1948–52, being influenced by Keith Vaughan and John Minton. In 1950s developed from figuration to abstraction. He said that any titles on his pictures were “meant to be interpreted as poetry, to engender a state of mind rather than describe exactly what the particular picture is”. Was influenced by European abstractionists and by English poetry, such as that of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Thomas Hardy, also by the work of James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Dylan Thomas. As well as painting, Durrant was employed in administrative work at Vickers from 1956–63 and was a director of the Heffer Gallery, Cambridge, 1963–76.

Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)


Do you know someone who would love this resource?
Tell them about it...