TOWN, Norman Basil

Norman Basil Town (1915-1987) was Keith Vaughan’s near contemporary (Town was born three years later). Vaughan and Town had become good friends, confidants, prolific letter writers to each other during the Second World War, when, as conscientious objectors, they had met whilst serving as non-combatants in the army.
During 1941 Vaughan served, alongside Town and other conscientious objectors, as members of the Pioneer Corps at Codford Camp in Wiltshire. Vaughan was a mentor to the slightly younger Town, who imbibed and shared the former’s discerning enthusiasm for the art of Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore, Christopher Wood, William Blake, El Greco, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso. In his journals, Vaughan described Town’s vulnerable, open nature:

The main points about N are the transparency of his person and his lack of armour and defencelessness to life. He is like a piece of spiritual machinery with one side cut away so that one can watch it working. He opens only on to himself.

Town studied at the Royal College of Art from 1946-49. Vaughan and Town’s dialogue continued in the form of extensive letters when Town starting working in the mines, a traumatic experience from which he never fully recovered, and influenced the dynamism of his work. He taught graphic design at the Wimbledon School of Art for twenty-five years, finally heading the department during the 70s and early 80s. He exhibited rarely during this period and consequently his early work has been forgotten, despite gaining significant attention after the war, demonstrated by his inclusion in the 1950-51 exhibition Fifteen Contemporary Painters at the Leeds City Art Gallery alongside Vaughan, John Minton, Robert Colquhoun, Robert Macbryde and Michael Ayrton. Peter Nahum produced a dedicated exhibition of Town’s work in 1994.

We thank Philip Vann for excerpts in this biography.