Artist in all media, photographer and writer on music who from 1940–70, apart from Army service, 1941–4, was a chartered surveyor in the family business, qualifying in 1940. He was born in Blackheath, London, and attended Colfe’s Grammar School and the College of Estate Management. From 1944–56 was a regular News Chronicle music critic, being an authority on Sir Arthur Bliss. In 1948 Dannatt began his association with the Dorset area, photographing it and taking up part-time residence in 1958, two years after reviving his interest in painting. In this he was self-taught. From 1963 Dannatt began an association with the Cornish painters. He was influenced by Penwith artists and especially John Wells through Ben Nicholson. Became an associate of Penwith Society of Art and a member of Newlyn Society of Artists.
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Dannatt had a three-man show with Wells and Alexander Mackenzie at Orion Gallery, Penzance, in 1975 (the same artists shared the exhibition Newlyn Revisited at Broad Street Gallery, Lyme Regis, in 1999), having a solo show at Newlyn Art Gallery, 1976. Other solo exhibitions included Galerie Schreiner, Basel, Switzerland, in 1980–1; Galerie Artica, Cuxhaven, Germany, from 1984; New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, 1992; Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, 1993; Book Gallery, St Ives, 1995 and 1997; and Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, Bournemouth, 1997, accompanied by the publication of George Dannatt: Three Essays. In that year also Quest & Bequest at Dorset County Museum included work by Dannatt and St Ives area artists from The George Dannatt Trust Collection. There were further shows at Maltby Contemporary Art, Winchester, in 2000 and 2003. In 2004 The Winchester Gallery at Winchester School of Art showed works by Dannatt, with others from the collection formed by him and his wife Ann. George Dannatt: Four Decades was at the Osborne Samuel Gallery in 2005. There was a retrospective at Newlyn Art Gallery in 1981. Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, holds his work, which employed geometric forms with lyricism and which used a warm and economic palette. The monograph George Dannatt One Way of Seeing, 1990, in English and German, illuminates the artist’s work. Lived in Tisbury, Wiltshire.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
