Biography

David (01.12.1931-17.01.2017) sculpted in stone, plaster, terracotta and papier-mâche. He drew in ink favouring pointillism and created silk screen prints. His unique painting style involved days of meticulous drawing followed by months of brushwork, applying thin oil glazes alternating with razor scratches in the dried paint creating a vibrant depth of colour and intriguing texture. He took inspiration from life, landscape and photographs. The same image sometimes reworked in several versions.  He would have what he repeatedly described as “breakthroughs”.  He was always interested to learn from what others had to say about his art.  He noted as influences:  E.H Gombrich, Jackson Pollock, Canaletto, Andrew Wyeth and Chuck Close as well as his own teachers and pupils.  

"Seem to be conquering the problem of space through tonal contrast. Look after the background and the foreground and the rest will look after itself."  (a quote from David’s journal, 24th April 1987). 

David had a Jewish father of Polish German and Iberian origins and an English Christian mother of Huguenot descent.  The youngest grandson of Oxford artist J. Allen Shuffrey, he was born David James Conrad Samuel on 1st December 1931 in Surrey. His father Conrad Samuel JP was a company director, Chair of Woking Urban District Council and survivor of The Western Front. His mother Babs née Shuffrey had been a Red Cross nursing auxiliary in The First World War. He had two older brothers Edward and Jeff. The latter has survived him.

Sent away at the tender age of seven to St Edmund Prep School Hindhead he went on to Harrow as an Entrance Exhibitioner.  At Harrow, David, was somewhat of a misfit, his choice of newspaper being The Daily Worker.   Yet he started an electronics  club and won a sixth form maths prize. He took art as an extra subject for one term only.  The teacher was a young Gerard Hoffnung. From surviving sketches David showed early artistic promise.

Two years of National Service in the army took David to Germany. Despite public school expectations, he was not considered officer material and couldn't march straight. Much later in life he was found to have scoliosis. 

David went up to Oxford in 1952. Whilst reading physics at Hertford College he became a member of the University Sculpture Society and for a time was treasurer of it. On graduation he declined invitations from two other universities to pursue academic physics and took a job as an electrical engineer for Decca Radar in Tolworth Surrey. For two years he worked on the design of early transistorised colour TV, speed cameras and cruise control.  His passion for art consumed most of his leisure time and he began evening classes at Kingston School of Art (KSA). In a life drawing class he met fellow student  and his future wife Margot Stewart. Margot was a primary school teacher, artist and poet.  She encouraged David to study fine art full time which he did at KSA from 1957 to at least 1960.. In 1960 he took his paternal grandfather’s original surname as his artist’s name. 

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Married in 1958, the couple first lived in Surbiton and grew vegetables in the garden.  In 1963, to get out of the rat race, they moved to the West Country with their two young children Christoffer and Judith.  Initially they lived on the Exmoor farm of David’s older brother Jeff during which time Rebecca was born.

 The family settled at Little Harford, Tedburn St Mary in August 1964: a Bohemian small-holding with a large studio, various animals and four children with the arrival of Rachel. Little Harford was open house to friends, relatives, foster children, overseas Exeter University students at Christmas, Belfast teenagers on holiday in the early years of The Troubles  and a Ugandan Asian refugee.   The welcome included eating delicious Aga-cooked home grown food, chatting around the kitchen table or in the studio, helping in the garden, being thrashed by David at table-tennis or attending a concert performed by the children.

Pursuing their interest in the environment and self-sufficiency, David and Margot created an extensive vegetable garden, orchard and woodland. True to his scientific past, David recorded rainfall, air and compost temperature and conducted horticultural experiments. He even gained external employment as a gardener and dry stone waller. Nonetheless most waking hours were spent in the studio.

From 1972-1973 David studied for a secondary school PGCE at The University of Exeter.  Quickly discovering comprehensive school maths teaching was not for him, he became an inspiring adult education art teacher in Queen Elizabeth’s Community College (QECC), Crediton and at Exeter Community Centre, St David’s Hill for nearly three decades. However he continued to do some supply teaching during the 1970s. He also gave some individual tuition and took commissions.

At the request of Harold Stacey and at the suggestion of Melville Hope of QECC, in January 1991 David began tutoring an art class in Tedburn St Mary Village Hall. By February 1992, this had transformed to a popular weekly art group: TAG which he, with Margot’s help, ran for many years. A number of exhibitions were held at Crediton Library. As David’s health failed the tutoring was gradually taken over by talented group member Don Nicolson who still runs TAG today. David retired from tutoring in 2013.

David found time for voluntary work. He was a long-standing member and Chair (1977-1980) of the Parent Staff Association and a member of the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s School (QES) Crediton, which all four of his children attended.  In the early 1990s, he and Margot also read for the Talking Newspaper. 

As a lifelong fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, David showed great creative diversity. In the 1970s, based on an idea by a mathematician friend he designed, developed and marketed Xy-Rixa, a tetrahedral games board  for chess and other games, which sold in London, Oxford and abroad.  For a while he compiled cryptic crosswords and even taught himself to play the piano.

He and Margot joined Crediton Writers Circle (CWC) for which David was for a time the Chair. In 1985, CWC ran a short story competition with submissions UK wide and judged by Nick Stimson. David wrote short stories, often autobiographical and a few poems. He was also a member of two community drama groups.  In Crediton Community Festival 21 Mar-22 Apr 1984 his play The Chance of a Lifetime was performed at QES and he acted in another play in the same festival.  He and Margot then joined The New Works Company, Exeter & Devon Arts Centre. The members devised, co-wrote and performed their own plays which toured Devon:  1986 four one-act plays and Alice Molland- witch of Exeter (David played Sir Francis North); 1987 An interference in the business (David played a clergyman and boatman) and Cinderella (David played Sir Norman St John Twice-nightly). 

David’s musical interests were eclectic. In addition to his passion for classical music, always on in the studio, David listened to John Peel on late-night Radio 1 after everyone else was asleep and was a member of the contemporary music record club at QES. He always took pride in his children and grandchildren’s achievements and was especially encouraging of their musicality.

After a slow decline with dementia and other health issues, David died at the age of 85 on 17th January 2017 at Lucerne House, Exeter where he had only been living for a fortnight. 

His daughter Rebecca Lublinski predeceased him in 2005.  His wife Margot passed away in February 2020. His three remaining children are Christoffer de Graal,  Judith and Rachel Samuel. His granddaughters are Hannah and Grace McInerny. His grandson Gabriel Ford de Graal was born in May 2017.

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photo credit: David at his exhibition in the Northcote theatre 1982 (photo Express & Echo)