We have put together this Northern Art Directory to provide you with information on the Northern British Artists whose works we regularly sell in our auctons. Click an artist to find out more information and to see works we have recently sold and prices achieved.
Born in Bradford in 1949, Atkinson attended Wakefield College of Art. She painted both in her studio and on the beach at Runswick Bay, a scenic village on the Yorkshire Coast.
Helen Bradley was born in Lees near Oldham in 1900, and won an art scholarship to Oldham Art School in 1913. She only began to paint regularly when she was 65 - motivated to show her grandchildren how different her own childhood had been - she was encouraged in this by a chance meeting with L.S.Lowry.
Peter Brook painted rural landscapes, farmhouses and scenes from different facets of British life. He was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1962. Peter Brook’s paintings are instantly recognisable and often feature the bleak moorland landscapes of the Pennines, Yorkshire and Scotland with his trademark man and dog motifs, together with the occasional wandering sheep.
Arthur Delaney was born in Manchester in 1927. He started work in a textile design studio in Manchester at the age of 13; Delaney started to paint as a hobby having no formal art training. His great influences were his friend L.S. Lowry and his memories of growing up in Manchester in the 1930s.
Born in Salford in 1910, Tom Dodson was the eldest of five children born into a working class family. He left school at 14 and never formally worked as an artist. However, after retirement he found more time to paint, and created realistic images of his working class childhood; his style was all his own, and he brought a sense of simplicity and energy to his subject matter.
Downie began by working in the building industry in Manchester, his hometown, which comes through in the industrial art that he then produced. His art is strongly influenced by the architecture and people of the city, specifically as it all was in the 1950s and 1960s, giving his artwork a retro and nostalgic quality.
Born in 1948, in Prestwich, Manchester, Gardner’s art works depict the landscapes that shaped him. Influenced by the Old Masters and Impressionists he would see in public galleries, Gardner’s oeuvre can be characterised by the way that he depicts the urban landscapes of Manchester and Lancashire in the impressionist style.
Born in Hyde, Greater Manchester in 1947, Trevor Grimshaw studied at the Stockport College of Art. He worked in charcoal, graphite and gouache which gave his mostly monochrome, stylised pictures of the northern industrial landscape a smoky, atmospheric look. In addition to industrial landscapes, Grimshaw’s pictures covered a wide range of topics including construction sites, monuments and steam engines, for which he had a passion.
Roger Hampson is best known for his paintings and drawings of mining, factory and street scenes, mill scenes and portraits of the people he met in these surroundings. He studied at Manchester College of Art from 1946 – 1952 and followed a career in teaching art before becoming the principal at the Bolton College of Art and Design, and later running the Loughborough College of Art and Design. He took part in more than 100 group shows and 30 solo exhibitions before his in 1996.
Born in 1917 into a working class family in Wigan, James Lawrence Isherwood’s family were cobblers, and he worked in the shop until released by his father’s death in the 1950s. Isherwood had limited commercial success during his lifetime, painting controversial, gimmicky paintings of celebrities which damaged his reputation as a serious artist. Lowry once bought one of Isherwood’s portraits, paying £5 for the work entitled ‘Minnie Small with cat’.
Born in 1941 in Rusholme, Manchester, Geoffrey Key is regarded as one of the UK’s most important contemporary artists. His paintings are heavily influenced by the school of European Modernism, and he is best known for his bold use of colour, fine draughtsmanship and strong imagination which have resulted in some striking, surreal compositions. Although Geoffrey Key is most famous as an artist he is also a talented sculptor, having taken a postgraduate course in sculpture at the Manchester Regional College of Art.
Born in 1949, Alan Knight is a contemporary artist known for his evocative landscapes and meticulous attention to detail. His work often explores the interplay between light and shadow, capturing the essence of natural beauty in various environments. Knight's use of vibrant colors and dynamic brushstrokes creates a sense of movement and life within his paintings, drawing viewers into the scenes he portrays. With a background in both traditional and modern techniques, he seamlessly blends these approaches to produce pieces that are both timeless and innovative. Knight's exhibitions have garnered critical acclaim, solidifying his reputation as a significant figure in the art world.
Lek was born in Antwerp, Belgium, to a Jewish family in 1929. The events of the Second World War meant that his family had to flee to Britain when he was a child, settling in Bangor, North Wales, in 1940. His experience as a refugee can be seen to be a central part of his artistic practice, with Lek citing the idea of ‘humanity’ as his artistic inspiration.
Throughout his career, Lowndes was often compared to L. S. Lowry for the similarities their artwork shared in style and subject matter. Both worked to document the social life of the industrial North West and did so in a similarly stylised way. Lowndes, however, painted Stockport, while Lowry is more known for his depictions of Salford, and revisions of Lowndes’s status within Northern Art has led to his work being considered equally unique.
Lowry's work needs no introductions. Most famous for his paintings of industrial settings round Salford and Pendlebury, Lowry was a faithful and prolific chronicler of working-class life in the mills, factories and streets of the era. His stylised portrayal of people and animals in his paintings led to the figures being called ‘matchstick men’.
Born in 1908 in Wigan, Lancashire to a family of mill workers, Theodore Major is as well known for his individual views as for his artwork. He was proud of his working class roots and refused to paint for gain, declining to sell pictures ‘to rich people’, but instead using his art to try and connect with ordinary people outside the art world. Major attended evening art classes at Wigan Art School, but always thought of himself as essentially self taught.
Born in Leeds in 1923 Donald McIntyre spent his childhood in North West Scotland, moving to North Wales in the late 1950’s where he would remain until his death in 2009. His paintings of Iona, Cornwall and Wales continue to go from strength to strength in our sales and we are proud to hold the auction record for this artist.
Harold Riley was born in 1934 in Salford, and during his student days met and became friendly with L.S. Lowry, who became a huge influence on Riley’s work; Riley and Lowry collaborated on a project to document Salford’s industrial landscape and the day-to-day working lives of its inhabitants. Although Harold Riley has painted his native city many times, he’s probably best known for his portraits of such notable figures as the Duke of Edinburgh and Nelson Mandela.
Wilf Roberts was born in 1941 on Anglesey, an area that inspired much of his work. He never believed when he was growing up that it was possible to make a living as an artist, as at the time there were no outlets for artists in Wales; instead, he trained as an art teacher and spent 13 years teaching in London. He returned to Anglesey in the 1970s, and was employed in local government and education while continuing to paint as a hobby. He retired in 1996 to concentrate on painting.
Harry Rutherford was born in Denton, Greater Manchester, in 1903, and lived for much of his life in Hyde where he attended the Hyde College of Art. From the 1950s until his retirement in 1968, he was an art teacher at the Regional College of Art in Manchester and was also president of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts for eight years.
Vivid street scenes are featured in Scholes's work, as is an enduring interest in the architecture of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. His turn to the past for subject matter is reflective of the artist’s passion for local history, and his artistic practice can be seen to be motivated by the desire to capture the local history of Northern cities.
Born in 1929 in Staffordshire, Simcock's works are often described, positively, as ‘dark and gloomy’, almost monochrome, although the artist would insist that they were not, but in fact built up of a range of subtle browns, reds, and greens. Just before he died in 2012, he had started to change his style towards more colourful and abstract work, but it is these striking images of his earlier career that remain the most admired and sought after.
Picked out by critics as one of the rising stars of the contemporary art scene, Liam Spencer was born in Burnley in 1964. He studied at Burnley College and Manchester Polytechnic, and is best known for his studies of city scenes and Manchester’s canals. He came to public attention in 2000 with his exhibition ‘Urban Panoramas’ at the Lowry arts centre in Salford. Two paintings by Liam Spencer hang in the Manchester Art Gallery alongside works by Adolphe Valette, Camille and Lucien Pisarro and L.S.Lowry.
Born in the Manchester area in 1943, Peter Stanaway is considered a rising star in the contemporary Northern art world. His work has been widely exhibited, including at Manchester City Art Gallery, Bury, Stockport, Oldham and Salford art galleries and Liverpool Cathedral. His striking, graphic colour blocks and strong structural compositions were influenced by Keith Vaughan, Fernand Léger and William Roberts, but his work has a regional, Northern flavour as well.
Born in 1901, C. F. Tunnicliffe is considered a leading figure in twentieth century wildlife art. The scientific accuracy of his artwork means that they have relevance to modern wildlife studies, whilst also being aesthetically important and standing as pieces of art in their own right.
William (Bill) Turner was born in 1920 in Manchester in poor circumstances. Although William Turner’s work is often bracketed with Lowry’s, he was greatly influenced by the French and German Expressionist schools, and his paintings are more vibrant and vigorous with a strong use of colour which lightens his often industrial subject matter.
Pierre Adolphe Valette was a Northern artist by adoption rather than birth. Born in France, Valette came to Britain in 1904. He studied at the Manchester School of Art, and later taught there from 1906 to 1920. Valette was heavily influenced by the French Impressionist painters and used these techniques to paint Northern industrial scenes shrouded in atmospheric mists and pollution. His work has been widely exhibited, including in The Lowry Gallery and the Manchester City Galleries.
Wade has recently re-emerged in the art world to a strong reception, reflected in the quality of auction results achieved since. Wilson55 is proud to hold the auction record for Maurice Wade for his work “Tower, Kiln and Little Red House, Hanley”.
Born in Caernarvon, North Wales in 1908, Charles Wyatt Warren painted the breath-taking scenery around his native Snowdonia in the impasto, palette knife sculpted style of the North Welsh school made famous by its master, the late Sir Kyffin Williams.
John Kyffin Williams was born near Llangefni on Anglesey in 1918, Williams studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. In 1944 he became senior art master at a school in London, a post he held for 30 years, while continuing to make regular visits to North Wales to paint.
