Painter of abstracts who was briefly involved in Surrealism in the 1930s. Although he painted as John Bigge his full name was John Amherst Selby-Bigge (usually hyphenated); he was the son of Sir Amherst Selby-Bigge and was created 2nd Baronet in 1919. Born in Oxford, Bigge was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, entered the Slade School of Fine Art briefly in 1914, but had his course “discontinued for military service” in World War I, partly spent with the Macedonian Mule Corps. (Bigge’s first wife, Rachel Ruth Humphries, was also at the Slade.) After returning in 1919 Bigge worked as a chicken farmer, then as an estate agent, painting in his spare time. His friendship with Edward Wadsworth “opened my eyes to the various movements that were evolving in Paris” in the mid-1920s, and they shared an interest in the “aesthetic of machinery”, Bigge relishing its forms in the Science Museum.