100 Heroes: Denton Welch
The gay man who became an influential writer and painter.
Denton Welch was a writer and painter.
Life
Welch was born in 1915 in Shanghai.
He was sent to boarding school from the age of 11, and went on to study art at Goldsmiths in London.
Early writing
Before beginning his art studies, Welch returned to China and recorded his experiences in a fictionalised autobiography - Maiden Voyage, published in 1943.
He followed this with the novel, In Youth is Pleasure - published in 1944. This was a study of adolescence.
In 1948, he published Brave and Cruel - a collection of short stories.
The accident
At the age of 20, Welch was hit by a car while cycling. His injuries included a fractured spine. This resulted in spinal tuberculosis which led to his early death.
Following the accident, Welch continued to paint but primarily seemed to focus on his writing.
The point of origin of virtually all of Welch's stories is biographical - they are often set in places he knew or had visited, and feature thinly disguised, often deeply unflattering, depictions of friends, family and acquaintances.
The relationship
Little seems to be documented about the relationship between Welch and Eric Oliver. They were living together in 1946, and were still together when Welch died in 1948.