Philip Connard was born at Southport in Lancashire on 24 March 1875. He was the son of David Connard and was given a minimum of state schooling, before joining the building trade as a house-painter. He attended evening classes in art, won a scholarship to the National Art Training School, South Kensington in 1896 and [...]
Iain MacNab was born at Iloilo in the Philippines on 21 October 1890. He was the son of an official of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. He was educated in Edinburgh and grew up in Scotland. From 1911 to 1914, he studied accountancy (which would later stand him in good stead in a number [...]
William Samuel Henry Llewellyn was born on 1 December 1858 at Cirencester in Gloucestershire. He studied under Edward Poynter at the Royal College of Art and in Paris. Llewellyn painted portraits and landscapes and taught at the Lambeth School of Art, where Arthur Rackham was one of his pupils. He first exhibited at the Royal [...]
Robin Tanner was born in Bristol in 1904. He was educated at Chippenham Grammar School in Willtshire. The year 1924 saw the publication of Laurence Binyon’s book The Followers of William Blake and in 1926, Martin Hardie organised a retrospective of Samuel Palmer’s work at the V&A. Inspired by these developments, Tanner began taking night-school [...]
John Butler Yeats was born at Tullylish, County Down in Ireland on 16 March 1839. He was the son of a Church of Ireland rector. He was educated at Atholl Academy on the Isle of Man, then under by all accounts, a brutal regime. Two of his schoolmates were Charles and George Pollexfen. He then [...]
Walter William Ouless was born 21 September 1848 at St Helier on Jersey in the Channel Islands. He was the son the son of the artist Philip John Ouless (1817-85), who specialised in painting maritime subjects. Walter entered the Royal Academy Schools as a student on 21 April 1865 at the age of 17. He [...]
Barry Flanagan was born at Prestatyn, North Wales on 11 January 1941. His father was a set designer at the Warner Brothers’ film studios at Teddington, Middlesex. Barry was one of four children and was educated at Foxhunt Manor and Mayfield College in East Sussex. He briefly read architecture at Birmingham College of Art, before [...]
Leon George Claude Underwood was born at Shepherd’s Bush, London on 25 December 1890. He was the eldest of the three sons of Theodore George Black Underwood and Rose Ellen Cornelius. The previous three male generations of the Underwood family had been antiquaries and numismatists. George had an antique and print shop in Praed Street, Paddington. [...]
Bernard William Meadows was born at Norwich, Norfolk on 19 February 1915. He was the product of a modest middle-class background and was educated at the City of Norwich School. In 1931, his father persuaded Bernard to prepare for the future, by training as an accountant. It soon became apparent that Meadows was useless at [...]
Rachel Reckitt was born in St Albans in Hertforshire in 1908. Her family moved to Golsoncott, a rambling Edwardian pile at Roadwater, Somerset in 1922. She remained there all her life and it would in time, become both her home and her studio. The house was vividly described by Reckitt’s niece, the author Penelope Lively, [...]
