David Humphreys

David Humphreys was born in 1937 to a Welsh father and a Scottish mother – Scottish and Pembrokeshire landscapes are the main inspiration for Humphreys work. Almost entirely a landscape painter, he studied Fine Art under a scholarship at Durham University, spending a short time teaching art before deciding to dedicate his life to painting in the British pastoral style in the 1970’s.

Humphrey’s paintings are a celebration of the land and all that they provide. Having lived in Sussex for more than 50 years, Humphreys journeys without a map to find his paintings in the landscape. Flat planes of colour give Humphreys work a soothing quality, whilst the rolling hills, fields, and houses so typical of the British countryside are brushed into existence in a manner that is so natural, the manmade objects seem part of the fields, themselves, a series of rectangular forms.

Humphreys mainly uses acrylic paints to achieve the flattened, soft effect that his work possesses. Humphreys manages to convey the soothing nature of the landscape through his smooth application of the paint. Subtle details like the lean of the wheat and other flora due to Pembrokeshire’s winds affecting the symmetry of the fields, as in Pembrokeshire Landscape, demonstrate Humphreys was living in the moment he could depict and remembers the significant details that make the British landscape so captivating for many artists.

Humphreys is a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy, where he was invited to show regularly in the Royal Academy summer exhibition. His work is held in the museums of the Art’s Council of Great Britain and The National Library of Wales. He has exhibited in New York, Caracas, Munich and Berlin, and his work is shown in many public collections and corporate collections including The Royal Bank of the Netherlands and American Express.