Surrealist painter and designer, born in London. Banting studied under Bernard Meninsky at evening classes at Westminster School of Art from 1921, going to Paris the following year for further studies. Returning to London in 1925 he became connected with the Bloomsbury Group painters, joined LG and showed with the 7 & 5 Society. At the beginning of the 1930s he again went to France where he met Breton, Creval, Giacometti, Duchamp and other artists. Further activities included designing for the Carmargo Society ballet Pomona; designing book jackets for Hogarth Press; in 1936 contributing pictures to the International Surrealist Exhibition, in London; and travelling to Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, where he met Ernest Hemingway, the writer.