Description
This marine oil painting titled ‘The Tanker “San Demetrio’ is signed by the artist, Denis Pannett in the lower left corner. The painting is finished with a high-quality champagne frame and white slip.
About Denis Pannett
All my life I have been influenced by the powerful images art can produce. Some of my earliest memories are of dramatic, atmospheric illustrations from my childhood books, which filled me with excitement and sometimes fear.
Denis Pannett grew up in an artistic environment, as his mother, Juliet Pannett MBE, was a professional portrait painter and through her instruction and encouragement that Denis took up painting.
In school, Pannett was influenced by the work of Roy Nockolds, Frank Wootton, and Terence Cuneo in the “How to draw” series, and later by the wonderful pen and wash drawings by Edward Seago in “With the Allied Armies in Italy”.
He was educated at Uppingham school and after National Service in Cyprus and Libya in the Devon/Dorset Regiment, he joined the diamond company De Beers working in the UK, Belgium and Africa. Apart from having one painting of a Spitfire exhibited at The Society of Aviation Artists while still at school, Denis took no serious interest in painting until he was in my 30’s, when his family took an art course at Walberswick with Edward Wesson and from then on he was inspired by his mastery of simplicity, tone and colour.
Pannett started exhibiting in local galleries and the London Exhibitions and in 1975 was elected a member of the Guild of Aviation Artists followed in 1979 by being made an honorary freeman of the Painter Stainers Company. By 1982, Denis found he had more art work than he could cope with, so resigned from De Beers with whom he had been for 20 years and went full time into art. In 1985, he was invited to become a member of The Wapping Group of Artists and from 2009 – 2012 was their President. He was also made a Fellow of the Guild of Aviation Artists in 2012.
For almost 20 years Denis, his mother, and his aunt ran art courses in Sussex and enjoyed numerous overseas painting trips, even having two exhibitions in Hong Kong. Through painting he became good friends with Richard Binns for whom he painted many of the illustrations for his guidebooks on France and the UK. He has also painted over 350 golfing paintings for the Rosemary Young Collection.
