Derek Jarman, who died on 19 February, 1994, was the unconventional director of the first ‘punk’ films and a gay rights campaigner.

He was famed for his challenging art house films and also for being one of the first people to reveal and talk openly about being HIV positive.

He was born Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman on 31 January, 1942, in Northwood, Middlesex. His father, a New Zealander, was in the RAF meaning Derek spent his childhood at a succession of RAF bases in the UK and across the world, including spells in Italy (where Mr Jarman later recalled falling in love for the first time) and Pakistan.

He studied history, English and art at King's College London and painting at Slade School, London for four years. In the late 1960s his art was exhibited at the Tate Gallery, the Lisson Gallery and the John Moores exhibition, and he won the prestigious Peter Stuyvesant Award.

In the early ’70s he was part of the social scene that revolved around the sculptor and performance artist Andrew Logan in studios at Butler's Wharf, London. His break in films came when he got a job as production designer for Ken Russell's The Devils (1970).

He spent much of the decade making small films with an 8mm camera given to him by a friend, before making his debut feature, Sebastiane, which he co-wrote and co-directed with Paul Humfress, in 1976. The film was groundbreaking in its positive portrayal of gay sexuality. It was also filmed entirely in Latin.

His next film, Jubilee, saw Queen Elizabeth I time-travel into the midst of the violence, drugs and punk rock of 1977. He followed it with a punk version of Shakespeare’s Tempest (1979) whose cast included Toyah Willcox and Christopher Biggins.

He then spent eight years and 17 rewrites making the award-winning biopic Caravaggio (1986), which starred Tilda Swinton and Sean Bean. The same year he was also diagnosed as being HIV positive.

He continued to work, returning to the 8mm camera after a frustrating time with the 35mm format, and picked up an LA Critics Award for The Last of England (1988). He also directed music videos for the Pet Shop Boys, Marianne Faithfull and The Smiths.

His 1989 film War Requiem brought Laurence Olivier out of retirement and he worked into the 1990s despite increasingly poor health, completing controversial biopics of Edward II (1991) and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1993).

He lived the last few years of his life at a small cottage in Dungeness. By the time he had finished his last film, the conceptual narrative Blue (1994), he was blind and dying of AIDS-related complications that eventually took his life at the age of 52.