Artist: David Gommon
Date: c.1934
Medium: Oil on board
Dimensions: 68.3 x 81.5 cm
Credit: Towner Collection, the Lucy Wertheim Bequest. Image Towner Eastbourne, © Estate of David Gommon
David Gommon attended art school at Battersea Polytechnic from the age of sixteen and was given a solo show by Lucy Wertheim who for many years was his patron.
Music Hall reflects Gommon’s interest in the theatre, it was via Wertheim that Gommon was allowed to draw backstage at Sadler’s Wells where he met and painted the ballet dancers Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann. Later when living in Dorset he developed an attachment with the romantic English landscape. However, he became disillusioned with art on his return to London and largely gave up painting. After a period in the London Fire Service during the Second World War, Gommon taught at a progressive school in Kent, then from 1946–77 at Northampton Grammar School.