Artist, designer, author, illustrator and printmaker, born and lived in London, his father being the artist Tom Gentleman, who gave him informal instruction. He attended St Albans Art School, 1947–8 and 1950, then Royal College of Art, 1950–3, under Edward Bawden and John Nash. Gentleman was a junior tutor there, 1953–5, then freelanced. Books illustrated included Plats du Jour, 1957; Bridges on the Backs, 1961; The Pattern Under the Plough, 1966; covers for New Penguin Shakespeare, 1968–78; Westminster Abbey, 1987; and The Illustrated Poems of John Betjeman, 1995. Gentleman was illustrator and editor of The Crooked Scythe, 1993. He wrote and illustrated Design in Miniature, 1972; David Gentleman’s Britain, 1982; David Gentleman’s London, 1985; David Gentleman’s Coastline, 1988; David Gentleman’s Paris, 1991; David Gentleman’s India, 1994; David Gentleman’s Italy, 1997; and David Gentleman Wood Engravings, 2000.
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His series of Fenella books for children appeared in 1967. He illustrated and designed for many publishers and organisations, including Royal Mail postage stamps, from 1962, his Winston Churchill stamp setting a new standard in design; posters for London Transport and the National Trust; symbols for British Steel and the Bodleian Library; the Eleanor Cross mural for Charing Cross tube station, 1979; and panels for Westminster Abbey, 1986. Gentleman’s solo exhibitions included 11 at Mercury Gallery, 1970–00, the Royal College of Art, 2002 (coinciding with the publication of his book Artwork), plus various lithography shows. In 2003, his powerful B.liar blood-splattered poster was a feature of the Iraq Stop the War campaign. There was a retrospective at the Fine Art Society, 2004. In 2005, Tate Britain displayed Gentleman’s lithographs of Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, and Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, to commemorate his seventy-fifth birthday. The Tate, Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Maritime Museum and many private collections held examples.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
