He takes inspiration from Emil Nolde’s mythically-inflected North German landscapes with their elemental paradoxes of colour, and Paul Cezanne for the relationship between forms.

John Eaves has exhibited throughout Great Britain and Germany. His paintings are in both national and private collections, notably the Arts Council, Bristol City Art Gallery and the city of Braunschweig, Germany.

In 1966 he was awarded the first Churchill Fellowship as a painter and received a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship in 1986.