Darsie Napier Japp was born in Liverpool on 17th
February 1883. His father, John Japp [1844-1911], was a Scottish born shipbroker and Darsie was
one of six children. At the time of his birth the family were living at 168
Upper Parliament Street L8 but by 1885 had moved to 29 Croxteth Road L8 . (Both of these houses have since been demolished.) Just before the end of the century when they moved to 9
Alexandra Drive L17.
After attending St. John’s College, Oxford, Japp went to
work in his father’s shipping office in London. It was here, between 1904-07
that he took evening classes at the Lambeth Art College, tutored by the future
Royal Academician, Philip Connard. He studied at the Slade School of Art [1908-09]
and became friends with fellow student Stanley Spencer, another future Royal
Academician whose works would ultimately sell for over £5 million.
Japp volunteered for the army at the outset of the First
World War. He rose to the rank of Major in the Royal Field Artillery, commanding
an artillery battery in Macedonia, where his service saw him awarded the
Military Cross. Coincidentally, his erstwhile fellow art student, Stanley
Spencer, also served in Macedonia, firstly as a medical orderly then as an
infantryman. The British War Memorial committee pressed the army to release both
Japp and Spencer to work on paintings for a proposed National Hall of
Remembrance. The army refused and in any case the project never materialised.
After leaving the army Japp was commissioned to produce a
work depicting the Royal Artillery in Macedonia and this work is part of the
Imperial War Museum’s collection.
For reasons which may have been economic or otherwise Japp
ceased to paint professionally shortly after the war ended deciding to farm and breed racehorses in Berkshire. He
left England in 1926 to live in France and Spain for some 27 years and spent
his final years living in Portugal where he died on 25th September 1973.
