Biography
Thomas 'Tom' Willem van Oss (b. Walberswick, Suffolk, UK 1901 - d. Boston, Lincolnshire, UK 1941) was at school in England and studied law at Leiden Unviersity, The Netherlands in 1921 by gave it up to work as an artist and writer for his father's newspaper, Haagsche Post until they fell out over a cartoon printed without his permission. Van Oss then concentrated on his art, making a small living and exhibited in Plainfield, USA in 1926. He was awarded was 'Daily Express' Young Artist in 1927 and in 1928 he exhibited at the Hotel Hermitage in Monte Carlo. He married at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street, Chelsea, London in June 1930, Favell Margaret Bevan (1901-1996), whom he had first met in The Hague where her father was an English chaplain, and they had three children. They lived in Villefranche-sur-Mer, France for a year before returning to his mother's home town of Walberswick, where his mother's late brother artist Allan Douglas Davidson (1873-1932) had also lived. In 1936 the family moved to Old Corner House (now The Hermitage), Deddington, Banbury, Oxfordshire and Tom was sufficiently prosperous to open a London Studio at 11 Avenue Studios, Sydney Street, Chelsea, but in 1939 his mother Winifred was still living at Millcroft, Millfield Road, Walberswick. Tom was a landscape and portrait painter, who took over his uncle's Allan Davidson's studio on the river Blyth, near the ferry to Southwold, where he painted primarily landscapes and portraits.
He was a member of Ipswich Art Club (1934-36) and exhibited at the Royal Academy during the 1930s whilst also showing at Cooling & Sons Gallery; Royal Society of Portrait Painters; Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Walker Gallery, London. During the Second World War, he was a major in the Royal Engineers and whilst inspecting coastal camouflage in a patrol boat off-shore near Boston, Lincolnshire, his boat struck a mine which killed him and 15 others on 3 November 1941.
