_jp.jpg){kind=small}
DAVID EVANS
TWIST AND SHOUT
David Evans; Tower of Babel, 1982
Watercolour, 76 x 126​ cm
©Artist's Estate
Three Highgate, in collaboration with Liss Llewellyn, is hosting David Evans – Twist and Shout (4 April – 12 July 2025) the first exhibition and celebration of Evans’ work since his retrospective at Salisbury in 2018, which itself took place 20 years after his untimely death in a road accident aged 58 in 1988. The exhibition reflects Three Highgate’s ongoing commitment to championing the legacies of post-war artists whose work may so easily be lost.
​
David Evans (1929 - 1988) was a British artist who is best known for his strikingly large and somewhat subversive watercolours, typically measuring over one metre in width or height, in which he flagrantly flouted the lingering English prejudice that watercolours are not serious. The exhibition will include a range of Evans’ previously unseen works from his early photomontages to those epic watercolours, all of which reflect the deeply felt disquiet of a constantly shifting political landscape and Evans’ own campaigning and environmentalism, a rare viewpoint for its time. As he declared, ‘Most of the time we are offered by artists only what they have partly digested or more than not what they are still chewing in their mouths…I don't think anyone produces anything of value until it has actually got into the bloodstream.’
David Evans; Man and Cat in Sitting Room, 1975
Watercolour, 76 x 61 cm
©Artist's Estate
In his essay ‘Harmony and Discord in the Age of Glam Rock’ Paul Liss of Liss Llewellyn observes ‘[Evans’] compositions are characterised by a kaleidoscopic vision of Thatcher’s Britain: an era of urban redevelopment, the Falklands War, industrial unrest, nuclear power, and the Cold War. Transition is everywhere: new roads carve their way through the countryside; fighter jets cast their shadows across the landscape; the scars left by industrial plants, pylons and landfill permeate throughout.’
Evans studied art at Central School of Arts and Crafts in London under the British painter Keith Vaughan (1912-1977). Early in his career he showed photo montages at Victor Musgrave’s Gallery One, which was a beacon for avant garde artists in London in the 50s and 60s. This gained him several commissions, including a mural for Sir Terence Conran´s legendary first restaurant, the Soup Kitchen, opened in 1953 at Chandos Place. While later in his career Evans focused almost exclusively on watercolours, Alistair Hicks, the curator of this exhibition, commented in his essay ‘Resistance in Watercolours’ ‘[Evans] learned from his collages that one can put contradictory information side by side and build a composition that contains elements of ambivalence to both content and traditional aesthetics’. In the 70s and 80s, Evans’ name was primarily associated with The Redfern Gallery, which held six solo shows of his work between 1979 and 1988.
Music was paramount to Evans and in the 1950s and 60s he ran a small classical music record shop, Record Roundabout, at 291 Brompton Road. He was friends with many musicians including Pete Gage, best known from his time in the 1990s as the lead vocalist of the R&B band Dr. Feelgood. Gage has written an intimate account of his friendship with Evans which, alongside essays by Alistair Hicks and Paul Liss, is included in a comprehensive catalogue of David Evans’ oeuvre accompanying the exhibition. Gage, who is also a poet, dedicated one of his three published collections of poetry Gerontius and Other Poems to David Evans where Gerontius is represented by David himself, who moves along his own spiritual journey in death, as in Elgar’s The Dreams of Gerontius.
​
In his interview with Three Highgate’s founder, Irina Johnstone, Gage comments ‘Listening to music with David was always an exciting experience that needed all one's attention. He was an educator who took no shortcuts as allowing [a listener] to ‘relax’ for example to the slow movements or to be reminded of pleasant or sentimental moments that the music may conjure. A beautiful slow movement had to be absorbed in the context of the complete work of art. I am sure David would have expressed extreme disdain at the ‘instant gratification’ served up by Classic FM for example. But this decline in listening to the whole of a classical work has been reflected in many other art forms and other ways of life. How we value artistic endeavour has changed so much since David’s death; there is so much to mourn as regards David´s era of record buying and listening to great music.’ The exhibition at Three Highgate pays homage to Record Roundabout and Evans’ love of music by displaying alongside his art a selection of his favourite vinyl albums kindly lent to the show and annotated by Pete Gage.
​In 1968, with his partner Basil Lawrence, Evans moved to rural Suffolk, where they strove for self-sufficiency within the land, and which saw Evans repeatedly celebrate the English countryside in his watercolours. These works are at times surrealist in their depiction making the viewer feel as if they are floating over the land. Nestled within them though are strong hints of the disconnect of humanity’s relationship with this idyll. Streams of traffic cut sharply through the green fields and looming electricity pylons threaten and dominate the land and skyscape. His subjects do not preach but rather warn of what the future may hold if such behaviours continue and intensify.
David Evans; The Club, 1975
Watercolour, 68 x 100 cm
©Artist's Estate
Evan’s pioneering environmentalism places him as an outsider observing, much in the same manner perhaps as being a gay man before it was legalised or even his adoption of the Indian spiritual philosophy Krishnamurti. Even subversion of the painterly medium itself (watercolour was considered traditionally for genteel use by amateurs, often women, rather than professional artists) in creating such large urgent works clearly intended for exhibition show Evans’ disdain for conventional standards. As the exhibition curator Alistair Hicks says, this is ‘resistance in watercolour.’
The many narratives within Evans’ compositions and their heightened colours reveal his love of storytelling with a very British twist. Off kilter humour and a fascination with the banal, alongside commentary on the country’s sexual and day-to-day politics while championing climate change awareness place Evans’ work both very much within its time but with one eye towards the future.
Despite his unique stance, influences from the British post-war art scene and such luminaries as Peter Blake; Lucian Freud; Francis Bacon; Graham Sutherland; Eduardo Paolozzi; David Hockney; and Keith Vaughan, who taught Evans, are all visible within Evans’ art alongside the Romantic landscapes of Samuel Palmer, the humour of Edward Lear’s draughtsmanship and the similarly transgressive watercolours of Edward Burra, with whose work Evans is often compared.
​​​
David Evans – Twist and Shout again reflects Three Highgate’s commitment to celebrating and raising awareness of important but somewhat overlooked post-war artists. As with its recent exhibitions of George Claessen and Ken Kiff, Three Highgate’s exhibition of David Evans’ work ensures that his artistic legacy is both preserved and elevated.
Notes to Editors, Press and Visitors
David Evans: Twist and Shout runs from 4 April – 12 July 2025. The exhibition is open 2 to 6 pm on Thursdays and Saturdays, 12 to 4pm on Sundays, and by appointment on all other days.​ For further information, images, and interview requests please contact Three Highgate team at info@threehighgate.com / +44 203 795 7200
​
About Alistair Hicks
Alistair Hicks is a writer and an art curator. He is currently curating an exhibition 'Dancing with the Moon: Marcel Dzama' with a little help from his friend Raymond Pettibon at the Pera Museum, Istanbul. He recently curated Paula Regos shows at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover, and the Pera Museum in Istanbul. Previously, he was a Senior Curator at Deutsche Bank. Alistair is the author of The Global Art Compass: New Directions in 21st Century Art (2014), Urban Mirrors – Reflections from the Artists of Istanbul (2022), Art Works: British and German Contemporary Art, 1960-2000 (2001), New British Art in the Saatchi Gallery (1989), and The School of London: The Resurgence of Contemporary Painting (1989). He has also written as an art critic and contributor for leading publications, including The Times and Financial Times and The Spectator, Apollo and Frieze magazines, among others.
About Three Highgate
Three Highgate is an art gallery and creative hub based in Highgate Village, an iconic part of London, perched at the top of Highgate Hill and teeming with history and culture. The gallery is run by the founder and director, Irina Johnstone, and places special emphasis on development and promotion of modern and contemporary artists with a unique and poetic vision. In addition to art exhibitions, Three Highgate´s cultural programme further extends artists’ work and legacy through book publishing, cinematography, artists´ talks and events. The gallery also provides residency programme at Three Highgate and at its Spanish affiliate in Guadiaro.
About Liss Llewellyn
Liss Llewellyn was created in 1991 by Paul Liss and Sacha Llewellyn. Sourcing paintings directly from artists’ estates and private collections, for over 30 years, Liss Llewellyn has offered for sale museum quality works of art by some of the most significant talents of the 20th century. Many of these have been placed in public museums and galleries as well as purchased by some of the greatest private collectors of our day. Our website is designed as both a resource for research and a marketplace. Working in association with museums worldwide, Liss Llewellyn has curated many groundbreaking monographic and thematic exhibitions. Each of these is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, over ten of which have been long-listed for the William MB Berger Prize for Art History, (awarded to Sacha Llewellyn in 2017 for her monograph on Winifred Knights).
About Pete Gage
Pete Gage has had a successful career in the music industry, as lead vocalist in various blues bands, in particular the Jet Harris Band in the 1960s, and later with Dr Feelgood in 1990s. After over 4 years with the Feelgoods, Pete went on to form his own 5-piece blues band The Pete Gage Band. In addition to being a musician, Pete is also an artist and a poet. He studied graphic design in the 1960s at St Martin's Art College, London, and incorporated this training in creating hand-painted mandalas based on Tibetan designs, but with his own westernized style. Throughout his life since his late-teens Pete has written reams of poems and free-flowing prose. Pete has three collections of poetry published by Hobnob Press: Fifty-Six Poems (2021), Gerontius and other poems (2022), and Now and Then (2023).