Tom Gamble’s highly individual watercolours of familiar places such as Brighton, York, London and Venice were popular and eagerly awaited contributions to the Bankside Gallery’s annual exhibitions of the Royal Watercolour Society, of which he was elected an associate in 1987 and a full member in 1989.
Taking giddying angles, focusing on curious shapes and making unexpected juxtapositions, Tom, who has died aged 96, was able to add atmosphere and life to topographical truth in an instantly recognisable style, often incorporating lettering. He favoured subtle shades of blue, red and yellow, often with slate-grey skies. As the art historian Judy Egerton wrote, “Gamble’s art is balanced between reality and imagination. Sometimes the mood is poignant, sometimes it is uneasy; but what runs through his work is a sense of the transitoriness of human pleasure, and of the brevity of life itself.”
Tom was born at Norton-on-Tees, County Durham, the eldest son of Thomas Gamble, an engineer at ICI, and his wife Dorothy (nee Naylor). His grandmother set him off on drawing and painting with the early gift of a paintbox and paper. On leaving school he was apprenticed as a sign writer at Stockton Co-operative Society works department, where he was excited by learning to mix colours, saying that the work of lettering taught him the value of a line.
When the second world war came, after a spell in the Home Guard he joined the Royal Naval Patrol Service in 1942 as a “bunting tosser” (signaller) on trawler minesweepers along the north-east coast. He was sent by troopship to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and transferred to the flagship for bombardment of Japanese enclaves around Burma. He treasured his Burma Star.
After the war he returned to a huge backlog of signwriting work, won the young journeyman of the year award, and taught the craft at evening classes. He attended government short courses in design at York College of Art and in 1952 was appointed as a lecturer at Loughborough College of Art and Design, running day release courses for apprentice painters and decorators. There he met Jocelyn Walden, a mature student on the embroidery sandwich course who became his partner, and in 1975 they moved to the village of East Perry, near Huntingdon, from where he continued for some years to commute to Loughborough.
Retirement allowed him to concentrate on watercolour. He served as honorary treasurer of the Royal Watercolour Society and was twice “featured artist” at the Bankside Gallery. Winning the Turner medal in 2012 for distinguished work in watercolour was the high spot of his career. Tom was elected a Brother in the Art Workers’ Guild and became a liveryman in the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers. He will be remembered as a gentleman in the full sense of the word, possessing that rare gift of being able to lighten the atmosphere, however dark, with a good laugh and a tale that no-one minded hearing again.
He is survived by Jocelyn; and by a son, Nigel, from an earlier marriage, to Dorothy.
