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‘Effervescent’
This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF
Tower of Babel, 1982

Twist and Shout  
David Evans  
Three Highgate, London



EPIC watercolour seems like a contradiction in terms, but that rather genteel medium, stereotyped by English evening classes and the Sunday morning easel was handled with vitality and drama by David Evans (1929-1988). 

Resistance in watercolour is a juicy term coined by the exhibition’s curator Alistair Hicks, whose fine essay on Evans in the 2017 Liss Llewellyn Fine Art catalogue (on sale in the gallery) fixes his star in the constellation of post-war British art: among Edward Burra, Peter Blake and David Hockney.

Further back we find soulmates in Turner and Samuel Palmer in his landscapes. Well yes, male artists all, but at least pointing up that watercolour has balls.    

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