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ANTHONY DEVAS - OLD REPTONIAN ARTIST

A number of personalities in our 'Famous Residents' section were neither born in Derbyshire, nor did they live there in adulthood. Instead their own indelible link with the county is that they went to school there. One such is the highly accomplished artist Anthony Devas (1911-58), a former pupil of Repton School. Here Peter Seddon presents a potted biography.

Old Reptonian Anthony Devas in 1957, the year prior to his death

Anthony Devas was born in Bromley, Kent, on 8 January 1911. In the early 1920s he was sent by his parents to Repton School in Derbyshire - it is recorded in the school history that he was a member of Priory House in 1924.

During his time at Repton he showed a great aptitude for art, and continued to develop the skill after leaving. From 1928-31 he was a student at the renowned Slade School of Art, and there met his future wife Nicolette Macnamara, who became both an artist and author.

Anthony Devas was sufficiently talented to become a professional artist, and he found himself seldom without a commission - indeed he was so busy that, unlike many artists, he did not need to teach to support himself.

During the 1940s and 1950s he garnered a particular reputation as a portrait artist. Among his best-known subjects are Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the writer and poet Laurie Lee, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Francis Fisher. The latter he knew particularly well, for Fisher had been the headmaster at Repton School (1914-32) when 'young Devas' was a pupil there.

Devas also painted landscape and still life and had a particular fondness for depicting flowers. As a keen gardener living in Chelsea he won on a number of occasions the annual neighbourhood competition for 'Best Window Box'!

From the early 1940s he was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy, and he was elected a member in 1953. Then aged only 42, it seemed a long and distinguished career lay ahead of him, but his life ended prematurely after a few years of illness.

Anthony Devas R.A. died in London on 21 December 1958, aged 47, and is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery.

Perhaps it is because of his early death that his name is so little recognised today outside serious art circles. Yet he certainly deserves recognition in Derbyshire, for Devas is arguably the most accomplished artist to emerge from Repton School throughout its long and illustrious history.

• Artists With Derbyshire Connections

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