Percy Frederick Horton MA, RBA, ARCA (8 March 1897 in Brighton, England – 1970) was an English painter and art teacher, and Ruskin Master of Drawing, University of Oxford from 1949 to 1964.
Following First World War conscription in 1916 he joined the Brighton branch of the No-Conscription Fellowship, and refused to be called up, maintaining an absolutist conscientious objection.
Although being a conscientious objector, he was still considered a soldier subject to military discipline, and upon not reporting for duty with the Royal Fusiliers he was arrested by the civil police, brought before Brighton Magistrates' Court, fined and handed over to the Army.
Hartrick taught Horton a drawing method that emphasised rhythmic outline – previously introduced to English art school education by the late Slade professor Alphonse Legros – and this stress on quality of line when drawing the life model became a major influence on Horton's future work.
[9][4] In 1947 he, with Paul Hogarth, Laurence Scarfe[10] and Ronald Searle, was invited to Yugoslavia to observe and record a 150-mile railway being built through voluntary labour; Horton drew the leading figures of the project.
This led to portrait commissions from Oxford Colleges, and to the renting of a gamekeeper's tower near Firle and Alfriston where he painted during weekends and vacations until the end of his life.
[3] His work is held in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery,[11] Tate,[12] Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, and the Arts Council.