David Gentleman, 92, found fame as an artist in the 1960s with his watercolours, lithography and wood engraving.
He has produced some 20 books and illustrated 37 by others and from 1962 to 2000 was also the Post Office’s most prolific stamp designer.
He has designed coins for the Royal Mint and posters and logos for industry and public bodies.
In 1978 he designed the platform-length mural at London Underground’s Charing Cross station. Today he lives in Camden Town in London with his wife, Sue.
How did your childhood influence your attitude to money?
My parents weren’t particularly well off but they were careful. They were both artists, Glaswegians.
They trained as painters and my dad supported himself by painting and cartooning after the First World War, in which he was wounded.
I’ve got one brother and for pocket money we had sixpence a week, which bought a great deal. My parents didn’t offer advice about money. Anything I knew about money I got from seeing what they did with it.
Did they encourage you to be an artist?
They didn’t encourage me, but they didn’t stop me either.
What was your first job?
Just after I finished at the Royal College of Art, where I’d been a student, I had a salaried job there for two years as a junior tutor, paid about £400 a year.
And that was the only salaried job I’ve had in my life. I was encouraged, while I had it, to do any work I could find for myself as well. I’ve gone on doing that ever since.
Has anyone ever been snobbish to you about commercial art?
Not to my face. I did plenty of commercial work in my early days and it taught me that I was gradually able to widen the range the longer I stayed at it. I went freelance after that salaried job.
Did it take long to make a living as a freelance?
I made enough straight away. It wasn’t particularly grand, but I wasn’t broke. I did work for magazines, some advertising.
My first big commission was from Joe Lyons of Lyons’ Corner Houses. In the early 1950s they published a lot of lithographs which they commissioned to put up in all their cafés.
I did one of a red fishing boat: my first commissioned job. They paid me £250 [about £7,400 today]. It was 1953.
Considering that my college job was £400 a year, I was pretty lucky. My biggest job was the Charing Cross tube station mural, for which I was paid many thousands of pounds.
Are you a saver or a spender?
I’m not a conscious saver. My wife looks after the admin in all my business as an artist and it leaves me to do what I want. I don’t think I’m a wild spender. Money I’ve spent travelling has almost entirely been for jobs.
Have you invested in property?
Only to live in. I’ve never invested in anything. I bought my first house in about 1955, for about £4,000 [£112,000 today]. It was in the same street where I still live. But I moved across the road to a bigger house in 1970.
What is the best thing you have ever bought?
An Albion printing press I bought when I was a student. It’s a small table thing and it’s a way to proof wood engravings. It cost £30. I went on to do a lot of wood engravings.
One early job was doing press ads for the new Sunday Telegraph when it was about to be published for the first time [1961]; the first ad was of two cyclists carrying bags of newspapers over their shoulder.
In 1978 I did my wood engravings for the Charing Cross mural on the same printing press. I knew it would be worth having despite being expensive.
Have you splashed out?
I’ve spent a great deal on travelling. One trip in 1975 or 1978 was to Nauru in the mid-Pacific. I didn’t plan to stay longer than a fortnight.
But I found the place so fascinating, with its coral islands, that I got my wife and children out to join me there for a month. I went to design some stamps for their government, who paid me well enough to bring them out.
Your paintings and drawings today sell for £1,500-£8,000. What was your earliest work priced at?
Probably two figures [less than £1,500 today].
Did designing stamps produce a steady income?
The floodgates were suddenly opened when they became more adventurous, and I did 103 stamps. That gave me a series of well-paid jobs over two decades, mostly in the 1960s.
