John Swarbrooke Fine Art is delighted to present Livid Cosmoramas, the first solo presentation of John Banting for almost forty years.
The exhibition features paintings and works on paper that span Banting’s career. Portraits and still lifes from the 1920s reveal Banting’s early association with the Bloomsbury Group and the ‘Bright Young People’ including Eddy Sackville-West, with whom he had a short-lived relationship.
The show charts Banting’s central role in Surrealism, following a trip to Paris in 1930 where he encountered Marcel Duchamp, André Breton and Man Ray, one of his earliest collectors. Banting’s innovation with composition and media is shown in works from the 1930s and 1940s, during which period he exhibited at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936 alongside Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí. Works from the 1950s and 1960s conclude the show, which show the artist returning to earlier themes and creating ever-bolder pictures on a large scale.
A scholarly catalogue published by John Swarbrooke Fine Art accompanies the exhibition, available to purchase for £20. A book launch on Tuesday 13 October also marks the publication of a new book by Hugh St Clair, John Banting, England’s Original Surrealist. St Clair is the author of A Lesson in Art and Life: The Colourful World of Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines (2019).
Preview, 6 October 2026 (6-9pm)
12 Saint George Street
London W1S 2FB