E Richard Sturgeon (1920-1999)
Eric Richard Sturgeon was a British artist born in Somerset in 1920. In 1940, Sturgeon enlisted with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry and was posted to North Africa where, in 1942, he was captured near Tobruk. As POW Sturgeon began to sketch portraits of his fellow prisoners and at the end of the war he studied at Taunton Art College, which led to a career as a commercial artist. Sturgeon held his first solo exhibition in a Langport gallery in 1970 selling all his works and securing a contact with a London publishing company to produce limited edition prints.