After school, Julian attended Trinity College, Cambridge where he read English Literature for two years, before escaping to Paris in 1931 (without taking his finals). In Paris, he soon became part of a wide group of young artists, writers, dancers, political activists and musicians: "Into this cauldron I flung myself avidly he wrote, At last I was part of the great world and not stranded on the station watching the train depart." (Julian Trevelyan, Indigo Days: The Art and Memoirs of Julian Trevelyan, 1957 (2nd Ed. 1996, p. 24). Importantly, he became close friends with other emerging artists such as Alexander Calder, Anthony Gross, Viera da Silva, Arpad Szenes. And then by pure chance at a cafe, Trevelyan met Stanley William Hayter, who was determined to establish an etching studio. This soon took place at Atelier 17, where for several years, Julian helped prepare the etching plates, papers and inks for artists such as Joan Miro, André Masson and Pablo Picasso.

Durham Wharf

Soon after Trevelyan’s return to England in 1934, Julian married the potter Ursula Darwin, a relation of Josiah Wedgwood and great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin. This led Julian and Ursula to look for a property where space could be found to build a pottery kiln. They eventually discovered Durham Wharf, which comprised a series of buildings once used for importing coal alongside the Thames in Hammersmith. Durham Wharf with its constantly changing view over the Thames, provided a home for the artist until his death in 1988.

Trevelyan's early work

Trevelyan used to refer to his early work as my Jekylls and Hydes, due to their seemingly opposing language. On the one hand he was working in a conventional landscape tradition and on another, he was fascinated by Surrealist ideas and produced an important series works in that manner. In 1934, he exhibited works from across his oeuvre, explaining in the accompanying introduction, "I have preferred not to mix my drinks, but to keep them well apart."

In 1936, he exhibited at the International Surrealist Exhibition, held in the New Burlington Galleries London. Two years later, he resigned from the London Surrealist Group and began to explore a path entirely his own, combining an enjoyment of realism with his habit of juxtaposition. Trevelyan’s work was often experimental and characterised by a bold palette and strong linear qualities. He retained an equal and abiding interest in both painting and print making. As his second wife Mary Fedden noted, "whichever medium Julian was using, his concentration was total and he developed a marvellous graphic language, pushing his personal vocabulary to the limits."

An Influential Teacher

An important strand to Trevelyan’s life was his teaching. He began teaching at Chelsea School of Art in 1950 and then moved to the Royal College of Art in 1955, where he became head of print making and oversaw the development of young artists such as Norman Ackroyd and David Hockney. Sadly, in 1963 he was stopped from teaching by a sudden and acute attack of meningitis which left him unable to speak or move in a controlled way. Over the following years he slowly recovered and found most of his speech and movement again, but there was now a concentration on etching and a simplification of line. His work became bolder, more direct and yet once again, highly personal.

Mapping the World Through Art

As is clearly demonstrated by the breadth of work included in this sale, travel was key to Trevelyan’s life. He found enormous stimulation in the wider world and became fascinated by various foreign landscapes, peoples and cultures. During his earliest overseas visits in 1931, he had travelled to the Balkans, Hungary and Greece (see lots 204-6, 209). Also, as an officer during the war years, he had inspected the camouflage of the British Army in North Africa, Nigeria and the Middle East. Then a few years before his death, he visited the USA in 1981 (see lots 245-7). However, he also travelled in Europe (to France, Italy, Malta, Spain, Greece) and further afield (to India, Turkey and Morocco).

Learn more about how travel shaped his artistic practice

A World Observed, a Life Recorded

Trevelyan’s son Philip described his father’s late work as an accumulation of observations, feelings and questions which often took on a documentary role by simply recording disappearing ways of life e.g. his pictures of oxen at work ploughing or being shod. At his core, Trevelyan was an observer of a rapidly changing world. The places he explored became recurring touchstones in his artistic vocabulary. He was drawn to the geometry of rooftops, the bustle of markets, and the gentle curve of a riverbank. Yet his art was never merely descriptive.

Philip recalled his father as being someone, for whom a gentle discussion of ideas, whether in print or on canvas, seemed quite as important as anything else in life, and I still tend to think of my father’s work as one extraordinary and extended conversation. By his death at the age of 76, his out-put had grown to well over a thousand paintings, 370 remarkable etchings, 3 books and many designs for book-jackets, murals, posters, broadcasts.

Read Phillip Trevelyn’s dedication to his father

Trevelyan's Later Work

"The stylised simplicity of his later work is not a manner, a visual formula, but a distillation of his visual experience, the outcome of the reduction to essentials. It is Trevelyan’s way of rendering spirit of the place without distraction or naturalistically representation fuss."(Mel Gooding, The Imaginative Impulse, Julian Trevelyan, 1998, p. 21)

Dutch Windmills was one of the last pictures that Trevelyan painted before his death and his bold forms and use of colour is characteristic of his late work. It recalls the artist’s Dutch heritage through his mother, the violinist, Elisabeth des Amorie de Hoeven, who had been born in Amsterdam. Somewhat poignantly he has chosen to depict the windmills from the back, facing away for the viewer towards a setting sun.

View page turning catalogue

Auction Details

Wednesday 11 March 2026, 10.30am GMT

Dreweatts, Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE

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• Friday 27 February: 10am–4pm
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• Saturday 7 March: 10am-3pm
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• Monday 9 March: 10am-4pm
• Tuesday 10 March: 10am-4pm

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