George Lambourn

George Lambourn (18 July 1900 – 1977) was a British artist, who although born in London, lived in Cornwall for most of his life.

Biography Lambourn was born in Rotherhithe in London and in 1916 joined the Royal Naval Air Service with whom he trained as an observer, while attached to a squadron based in Scotland during World War I.

After the war he worked in Bruges where he planned the design of a factory for the English Electric Light Bulb Company. While in Bruges he developed his interest in art and painting. This led Lambourn to study art at Goldsmiths and at the Royal Academy Schools between 1921 and 1926, and then briefly in Paris. In 1926 he married and moved to Sussex. Eventually he and his wife and their two children settled in Brooke near Norwich. There, Lambourn began painting portraits, most notably one of Augustus John which he completed in 1932. Lambourn was a keen sportsman and was one of the first judo black belts in Britain and was chosen for the British Olympic kayak team in 1936.

At the start of World War Two, Lambourn joined the Red Cross and went to France, working in an ambulance unit as part of the British Expeditionary Force, in early 1940. Lambourn was subsequently assigned to a Field Dressing Station for the holding force covering the retreat from Calais. He was severely wounded and evacuated on one of the last boats to take part in the Dunkirk evacuation and was subsequently mentioned in dispatches. During the advance, Lambourn made several paintings of the refugees he encountered and a small number of these works were purchased by the War Artists' Advisory Committee.

After the war, Lambourn returned to Mousehole, where he ran the Merlin Theatre, from the school building he had bought before the war, until 1951. A solo show of his work, supported by the Arts Council, was held at the City Art Gallery in Plymouth in 1950. Following a bad experience with a Cork Street gallery, Lambourn mostly showed at small regional galleries with his last show being at the Newlyn Art Gallery in 1976.