My father, John Donovan, who has died aged 83, was an artist and writer. His novella Anne, a lyrical work in a stream-of-consciousness style, was published in 1972 by John Calder and Marion Boyars in their new writers series and admiringly reviewed by Robert Nye in the Guardian. Over the ensuing decades, John laboured over a longer-form autobiographical novel, but was unable to complete it to his satisfaction.
He was born in the family pub in Cowlinge, Suffolk, the fourth child of six. His parents, Constance (nee Sparkes) and Cornelius, were working-class Londoners who moved several times before and after the second world war, with unsettling effects on John’s education.
A man of leftwing views and strong anti-militaristic convictions, he served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in lieu of national service. He then trained as an art teacher, initially at the Bath Academy of Art at Corsham Court, where he was taught by the young Howard Hodgkin and formed a circle of lifelong friends. However, his outspoken radicalism did not endear him to the authoritarian head, Clifford Ellis – and after an incident involving a young woman in his room after curfew (John always insisted that they were doing no more than listening to Beethoven) he was forced to leave, completing his training in Bristol.
John met the lecturer and writer Françoise Barthod in a French peace camp in 1962. After a whirlwind courtship and marriage, teaching posts in pre-independence Algeria, and my birth, they left for Melbourne on the “£10 Poms” assisted-passage scheme. There they adopted my sister, Mahalia. The call of their European roots eventually proved too strong, and in 1967 they returned to the UK to settle in rural Norfolk.
Interspersed with his writing and his duties as an early-prototype househusband, John turned his hand to sculpture and painting. With the help of Jimmy Briggs, a local blacksmith, John made a series of scrap-metal sculptures, which led to a successful show at the Roundhouse, London, in 1971. He made befezzed dignitaries from jerrycans and old spectacles; transformed rusty scythe blades into peacock tails; and created lightweight pigs from oil drums. He subsequently sold a number of pieces to the pioneering Leicestershire county council art collection. John also found time to collect antiques. He had a discerning and eclectic eye, developing a particular expertise in early English domestic ironwork.
John and Françoise divorced in 1989. He is survived by his four sisters, by Mahalia and me, and by two grandchildren.
