George Henry Pearson – “Moon Landscape”

Born in 1919, George Pearson was one of a wave of ex-servicemen who returned to invigorate British art schools in the immediate postwar period. A member of the Artists International Association, Hampstead Arts Council, and the Council of Industrial Design, Pearson’s art training began as a Junior at Hammersmith between 1933 and 1936. As a young artist in the lead-up to the Second World War he found employment as a designer for Morton Sundour Fabrics. After serving in Egypt with the Royal Army Medical Corps (and participating in the United Nations Art Exhibition, Cairo in 1944) Pearson returned to the family home in New Malden and sat his exams at Kingston School of Art, completing the NDD in Painting in 1949. Whilst at Kingston, Pearson collaborated on several large scale mural works, including the murals in the canteen of Surrey County Hall, acting as Gus Lunn’s assistant at St Alphege’s, and taking a private commission from Bentalls in 1949. L.J. Pryer, Display and Store Decor Controller for the department store commented We have found his work of a very high standard and he has always been a most co-operative and efficient worker. We can thoroughly recommend him in any capacity, to anyone requiring a high standard of art interpretation. On leaving Kingston, Pearson continued to work as a painter, exhibited in Young Contemporaries, the 1950 British School at Rome exhibition, Art Exhibitions Bureau, Artists International Association, and United Society of Artists exhibitions. He was at this time represented by the Furneaux Gallery in Wimbledon and held a solo exhibition there in 1965. Pearson also developed a parallel career as an art teacher, leading Saturday morning art classes at Kingston, and teaching at the Northern Polytechnic Secondary Technical School (later renamed the Sir Philip Magnus Secondary), the South West London Literary Institute, Garratt Green School for Girls, Esher Institute of Further Education and Burwood Park School. Reginald Brill, the Principal at Kingston wrote of his former student: I believe him to be a good teacher not only because he is a good artist but because he also has the patience, knowledge, understanding, and a sincere and sympathetic manner that commands his student's respect. In his own words, Pearson commented on the occasion of his solo exhibition at the Furneaux in Wimbledon that Painting for me has become a sort of adventure where the unexpected often happens – a game of hide and, sometimes, find. He exhibited widely in London, throughout the UK and in other countries, and many works have been purchased by private collectors and galleries. His work can be seen in the Ben Uri Art Gallery and Imperial War Museum in London, and the Auschwitz Museum in Poland.