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Peake, Mervyn (1911-1968) Author

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Peake, Mervyn (1911-1968) Author

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Mervyn Peake. 1911-1968

Mervyn Peake was born in China on 19 July 1911 in a small European settlement called Kuling, he spent most of his childhood south of Peking, in Tientsin china, at the age of 12 in 1923 the Peake family, along with Mervyn, returned to England where he attended Eltham College in Kent. In December 1929 after a brief spell at the Croydon School of Art, he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Art. During the 1930s he exhibited his work on several occasions in London and on the island of Sark as well as taking a teaching role at Westminster School of Art. In 1938 he had his first solo exhibition and the following year his first book Captain Slaughterboard was published. At the outbreak of World War II Peake had badly wanted to be an official war artist and so in the early months, with a reference from Augustus John, he applied to the War Artists Advisory Commission (WAAC) and his name was added to the reserve list by the Committee. In 1940 Peake was called up and served with the Royal Artillery and then later with the Royal Engineers, in the same year he suggested to the committee that he draw prisoners of war before they were shipped to Canada but they refused permission. In 1941 the Committee again refused his application to become an official war artist, even though it had been fervently supported by his then CO, commenting, "It was felt most important that the Committee should not, in such cases , allow themselves to be influenced by the fact that the artist may wish to get out of the Army". In 1942 he was considered to draw miners in the Rhondda Valley but again his hopes were dashed when the project was abandoned. On 31st January 1943 the WAAC gave Peake a commission for a 'picture and drawings of a glass factory' where they blew cathode ray tubes. In May 1943 Peake, after a long period of sick leave spent at the Army Millitary Hospital in Southport, having suffered a nervous breakdown was invalided out of the Army and on the 13th of May he was given a three-month salaried post to continue his work at the Birmingham glass factory. In 1945 Peake travelled to Germany and France this included a trip to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He was intensely affected by drawing the dying inmates, which resulted in some disturbing poems and paintings. At the age of 57 he passed away suffering from Parkinson's disease and Encephalitis Lethargica (sleeping sickness).

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