The 1940s..... — John Peace Paintings

By his mid-teens John had become increasingly serious about becoming a painter despite the fact that, as the oldest of five siblings, the expectation was that he would take on the family grocery business or work in the local coal mine. It was John’s secondary school art teacher who persuaded his parents that he should be permitted to apply for a place at South Shields School of Art. John always spoke fondly his tutors there, describing his formative two years at the art school as some of the happiest and most fulfilling of his life. Painted in 1949 while a student at South Shields, “Lemington Point”, is one of John’s earliest known works.