Section

BIOGRAPHIES OF BRITISH ARTISTS

Edited by Mark Quinlan

  1. A
  2. B
  3. C
  4. D
  5. E
  6. F
  7. G
  8. H
  9. I
  10. J
  11. K
  12. L
  13. M
  14. N
  15. O
  16. P
  17. Q
  18. R
  19. S
  20. T
  21. U
  22. V
  23. W
  24. X
  25. Y
  26. Z
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OAKLEY, CHARLES

Charles Ernest Oakley was born into a naval family at Urmston, Manchester on 29 November 1925. He was the son of an engineer and won a scholarship to Manchester Grammar School. In the early years of the Second World War, while youth hostelling in the Lake District, Oakley came upon the crash site of two [...]

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OLIVER, ISAAC

 
Isaac Oliver is believed to have been born at Rouen in France in 1560. He was the son of the Huguenot goldsmith Pierre Olivier and his wife Epiphany.  The documented facts about Isaac’s early life are few and little is known.  He was in London with his family in 1568, after they had fled France [...]

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OPIE, JOHN

John Opie was born on 16 May 1761 at Trevellas, St Agnes, near Truro, Cornwall. He was born in a tin-mining district, where his father was a mine carpenter. Although John’s artistic gifts were readily apparent at a young age, the economic circumstances in which he was raised precluded artistic training and he became an [...]

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ORCHARDSON, SIR WILLIAM QUILLER

William Quiller Orchardson was born at Edinburgh on 27 March 1832. At the age of 15 he was sent to the Trustees’ Academy, then under the mastership of Robert Scott Lauder. His student contemporaries included Thomas Faed, James Archer (1823-1904) and Robert Herdman. As a student, Orchardson did not shine and his work was distinguished [...]

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ORPEN, SIR WILLIAM

William Newenham Montague Orpen was born at Stillorgan, Dublin on 27 November 1878. He was the son of a solicitor. A child prodigy, he was accepted into Dublin’s Metropolitan School of Art at the age of eleven. Six years later, he entered the Slade, where he studied under Henry Tonks and swiftly established a reputation [...]

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OSBORN, EMILY MARY

Emily Mary Osborn was born in Essex in 1834. She was the eldest of nine children of a clergyman. The family moved to London in 1848 and Emily studied first at Mr Dickinson’s Academy in Maddox Street, London, and also received private tuition from the portrait painter James Leigh (1808-60). It has also been suggested [...]

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OULESS, WALTER WILLIAM

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 [...]