John Minton: A Centenary review – a wildly restless talent

Pallant House, Chichester
Best known for his doleful self-portrait and early death, Minton was an artist with a fierce lust for life, as this fine show reveals“Mystery of the gifted artist” was the Mirror’s headline when the painter John Minton was found dying in his London studio at the age of 39. Detectives discovered a bottle of sleeping tablets close to the body. The mystery, it turns out, was not the means but the motive. For Minton was “gay, generous, successful, po