Born Northwood, Middlesex. He studied at the Slade 1929-31 and 1935-6, also under Bissière at the Académie Ranson, Paris. In 1936, he held his first solo exhibition at the Bloomsbury Gallery in London. He joined the army in 1939, serving in the Commandos. In 1942 he was captured and remained a POW until 1945. He turned to abstract art around 1950, encouraged by his friendship with a member of the Cobra Group. He travelled to Paris and Amsterdam to study the work of Mondrian and began producing very austere works, using only black, white, and small segments of earth colours. In 1954-6 he taught at the Central School of Art and Design, during which time he began making visits to Cornwall, staying first with Patrick Heron, then renting a studio for summer use at Newlyn. He finally moved permanently to Cornwall in 1965 and became part of the St. Ives group. Landscape connotations began to infiltrate his abstracts, and figurative ingredients returned, but his style remained vigorously abrasive, like his personality. Humour entered his late work when, confined to bed for the last two and a half years of his life, he found emotional release through the painting of gouaches in which hectic colours and childlike drawing combined with his immense zest for life.