Now, Hampstead Museum and Gallery Burgh House is appealing to residents who might have work by the late painter hanging at home.
They are staging an exhibition of Towner’s paintings next year and would like anyone to come forward who owns one of his works.
Towner had a studio in Mornington Crescent in the 1920s and in 1927 moved to Holly Hill Hampstead with his mother – relocating to 8a Church Row a decade later.
He lived there until his death in 1985 and is known for capturing landscapes and cityscapes in the period before and after the Second World War which paid tribute to the gentle beauty of British scenery.
Burgh House already owns several of Donald Towner’s paintings including this view of Hampstead Gardens painted in 1957. (Image: Burgh House) He exhibited at Burgh House in his lifetime and it now holds several of his paintings including views of The Mount, Hampstead Gardens, and Hampstead Heath in winter.
Hampstead cafe goers might be familiar with his 1972 painting of people fishing at a pond on the wall of Louis’ Patisserie in Heath Street.
He also painted the reredos, or screen at the back of the altar in several churches, including Christ in Majesty in the Lady Chapel of St John’s Parish Church, in memory of his mother Grace who is buried in the cemetery.
“He was a passionate naturalist who also painted a postwar Britain in flux, recording the rubble surrounding St Paul’s Cathedral and the changing face of his beloved Hampstead,” says Amy Miller, Curator at Burgh House.
“This exhibition explores the sense of place created by Towner’s work.
“A number of pieces in our collection came to us from people who knew him and we were wondering if there is anyone in Hampstead who still has his work.”
Donald Chisholm Towner was born in Eastbourne in 1903, the son of teacher and amateur artist William Towner.
While at school in Eastbourne, he met fellow artist Eric Ravilious and they studied at Eastbourne School of art, and won scholarships to the Royal College of Art.
Towner was also a renowned collector and writer on English ceramics, whose family name is attached to a gallery in Eastbourne.
When his great-uncle Alderman John Chisholm Towner died in 1920, he left 22 paintings and £6000 for the establishment of a public art gallery which today owns a major collection of work by Eric Ravilious.
