"Artist John," on a 1928 Time magazine cover |Birth
name||Augustus Edwin John| 4 January 1878| |Died||31 October
1961 |Awards||Order of Merit, RA| Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, (4
January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter,
draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an
important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom.
"Augustus was celebrated first for his brilliant figure
drawings, and then for a new technique of oil sketching. His
work was favourably compared in London with that of Gauguin and
Matisse. He then developed a style of portraiture that was
imaginative and often extravagant, catching an instantaneous
attitude in his subjects." Life and work  John was born at Tenby
in Pembrokeshire, the younger son and third of four children in
his family. His father was Edwin William John, a Welsh
solicitor; his mother, Augusta Smith from a long line of Sussex
master plumbers, died young when he was six, but not before
inculcating a love of drawing in both Augustus and his