and paper and my bag of boiled sweets or I shall be vexed”. Although the infection was stymied, Fitton was rendered permanently deaf in one ear and endured weekly trips to hospital over a two-year period, with long spells in waiting rooms where he observed and studied his surroundings. In an introduction to the Dulwich Picture Gallery catalogue, John Sheeran suggested that Fitton's keen visual awareness may have been heightened by the damage to one of his senses. Fitton was educated at the Watersheddings Board School, but his health problems adversely affected his academic performance and he left school aged fourteen, prompting his headmaster to remark: “He won’t be good at anything – that is except drawing”. He subsequently attended evening classes at Manchester School of Art under Adolfe Vallette. His fellow pupils included L. S. Lowry and Sam Rabin. In 1920 Fitton moved to London where he attended evening classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and was tutored by Archibald Standish Hartrick. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1929 and from 1932, Fitton was an active member of the London Group. His first solo exhibition was held at the Arthur Tooth and Sons gallery in 1933. Fitton worked in a wide variety of formats, producing cartoons for the Left Review and posters for the Ministry of Food. He worked as a printer and advertising artist, and in 1937 designed posters for London Transport, commissioned by Frank Pick. In the late forties he executed cinema posters and programmes for the Ealing Studios and Romulus Films. Fitton appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 9 January 1971. Legacy Fitton's work is in the permanent collections of Tate, the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry, and Newport Museum and Art Gallery. A portrait of his wife, Margaret Fitton nee Cook, whom he married in 1928, is in the Nottingham City Museums and Galleries collection. Four photographic portraits of him, by various photographers, are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. Exhibitions of his work were held at Gallery Oldham in 1983 and at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1986. Memberships 1944: Elected associate of the Royal Academy, 1954: Elected full member of the Royal Academy, 1968-75: Trustee of the British Museum, 1970-82: Honorary Surveyor of Dulwich College Picture Gallery, 1974: Elected Senior Member of the Royal Academy, References External links