DAVID PARFITT lives and works beside the Thames in West London. Here he paints portraits, and also the tidal Thames with its bridges and tower blocks, the towpath and the foreshore. Much of his work is commissioned; it is widely exhibited and is represented in many collections.

 

David was born in 1943 in Pontypool in South Wales, and grew up in Blaenavon, in those days a mining town at the head of the Afon Llwyd valley. He went to Abersychan Grammar School and Monmouth School, and studied painting and drawing at Newport College of Art and at the Royal College of Art.

His early paintings were of family and friends, and of the gaunt mountains and industrial valleys of South Wales – people and places have been his subject matter throughout his working life.*

 

He has taught in many art colleges, including the Royal Academy Schools where he was Senior Tutor. He is a member of the New English Art Club.

 

*Under the heading Early Work, a section of his first art school sketch book is reproduced. The drawings shown were made in 1959/60 in and around Newport and New Tredegar. More pages from this sketch book will be reproduced over time.