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Maurice Denton Welch was born March 29, 1915, in Shanghai, to Arthur Joseph Welch,
whose parents were English, and Rosalind Basset, whose family was originally from
New Bedford, Massachusetts. Denton Welch was the youngest of four boys and spent
his
early childhood in Shanghai, with many visits to England. |
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In 1924, Welch was enrolled in a school in Kensington, and then from 1926 to 1929
he
attended St. Michael's, a preparatory school in Uckfield, Sussex. While he was
in
school, his mother, with whom he was especially close, died in Shanghai in March
1927; this event had a profound effect on him. In 1929, Welch started attending
school at Repton in Derbyshire. Welch started at the Goldsmith School of Art in
New
Cross in 1933, where he studied for three years; among his teachers was the
printmaker and graphic designer Edward Bawden. At first he lived in a house where
his brother Bill was also rooming, and then he moved into a house near Greenwich
Park where the landlady was Evelyn Sinclair, who became a close, lifelong friend. |
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On June 7, 1935, Welch was traveling by bicycle to go visit his aunt when he was hit
by a car. His spine was fractured, and for a few months he was paralyzed from
the
chest down. He was able to learn to walk again, but with difficulty. For the rest
of
his life he had kidney and bladder infections, which would cause frequent and
severe
headaches. After the accident, Welch first spent time at National Hospital, and
then
in the Southcourt Nursing Home in Broadstairs, Kent. When he left the nursing
home
July 1936, Welch rented an apartment with Evelyn Sinclair in Tonbridge in order
that
he could be close to his doctor, John Easton. Sinclair remained with Welch as
his
housekeeper at his different residences until May 1946, two months after Welch
and
his partner Eric Oliver moved to Middle Orchard, the country house of Noël and
Bernard Adeney at Crouch, near Borough Green, Kent. However, Sinclair returned
to
Middle Orchard in July 1948 to assist Welch until his death. |
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Welch continued to paint and draw after his accident. In 1941, the Leicester
Galleries in London first exhibited some of his paintings, and continued over
the
next few years to include his paintings in their exhibitions. The Leger Gallery
and
Redfern Gallery, both in London, also exhibited his works. Welch began writing
in
1940, and some of his poems appeared in minor publications in 1941. In 1942, after
the death of the painter Walter Sickert, Welch's article "Sickert at St. Peter's" (an amusing account of his having tea with
Sickert shortly before Welch left the nursing home in Broadstairs) was published
by
Cyril Connolly in the August Horizon. Welch received
a letter of praise from Edith Sitwell. Soon after, Herbert Read, editor at
Routledge, accepted Welch's manuscript for "Maiden
Voyage", and Sitwell offered to write the foreword; she also wrote a review
for the book. With her support, Maiden Voyage sold
out before its May 1943 publication. The book received enthusiastic reviews, and
Welch began writing In Youth Is Pleasure, which was
published in February 1945. He also wrote several short stories, and in the fall
of
1945, as his health was worsening, Welch resumed his work on A Voice through a Cloud, a novel that he had begun earlier and that was
to remain unfinished at his death. Although Welch was to consider himself primarily
a writer after the success of Maiden Voyage, he kept
painting and drawing. Nine of his late paintings, created during a time when his
health was failing, were reproduced in A Last Sheaf
(published in 1951). He died December 30, 1948, at Middle Orchard Cottage in Crouch,
Kent. |
