The sculptor, artist and teacher, Roy Bell (1930-2022), was born in Bradford and spent his early years there. In 1939 he was evacuated to the Skipton area, where he completed his school education. Between 1946-49, he attended Skipton Art School, where he studied alongside Doris Wilkinson (later Schrecker), who painted the portrait of him, shown below.
Roy Bell, by Doris Wilkinson (later Doris Schrecker), painted around 1948.
Roy continued from Skipton onto advanced art studies at Chelsea Art School (1949-1952), where he specialised in sculpture, followed by a teacher training course in London.
After a period of National Service (1953-55) he was appointed Art Master at Huddersfield College and during his time there established evening art classes for local adults at an abandoned primary school in Kirklees.
In 1963 Roy moved to Hertfordshire to take up the role of senior advisory art teacher to the Hertfordshire local education service and was a part time lecturer for the Workers’ Education Association (WEA).
In 1966, he was appointed as art advisor for Cambridgeshire, a post he held for the remainder of his career. He led a county inspectorate team and was instrumental in organising the annual art exhibition at the East of England show. During his time in Cambridgeshire he taught widely across the county, including active involvement with the Cambridgeshire School of Art, and was a lecturer for the British Arts Council. He was admired and praised during this time for his leadership and the high standards of art education achieved in the county. In a 1984 report to the local authority, he explained the importance of art in the curriculum:
The broad understanding of Art and its relationship to the history of civilisation and its contemporary application is a way of learning about people in relation to their society and it represents what for us is one of the platforms of a sound society along with morals and Government, namely culture.
Roy retired in 1987, but was active with his own sculpture and painting throughout his career, and subsequently. His West Yorkshire heritage was often expressed in his paintings.
In July 2018, a former student, Nicholas Bielby, who had been tutored by Roy in the late 1950s, met with again in City Park, Bradford. This was as a result of seeing this profile of Roy on this website and reading about him in the local newspaper, the Bradford Telegraph & Argus. A special screening of Roy’s work was shown on the Big Screen in City Park in honour of the reunion.
Nicholas Bielby (left) and Roy Bell, City Park, Bradford, July 2018. Image: Bradford ‘Telegraph & Argus’.
You can see more of Roy Bell’s Yorkshire paintings at https://www.notjusthockney.info/bell-roy-my-art/
‘Huddersfield’. Image: see artist’s blog, below.
Roy’s work was exhibited widely across the UK, including at: Skipton Castle; Young Contemporaries Exhibition, London; Huddersfield Art Gallery; Ely Cathedral; galleries in Salford, St Ives, Holmfirth; and at a range of venues across Cambridgeshire. The artist’s sculptures are also on display in commercial premises, and there is a Christ with hands extended at Ringmer Church, East Sussex (see examples below).
The Yorkshire Post, commenting on Roy Bell’s sculptures, observed:
Mr Bell works in modelling clay whereby his subject is built up from a base and also sculpts his figures from a solid block. All have a power that is easily discernible, all are evidence of earnest intention and most of them bear witness to a truly artistic understanding and insight adequately expressed. Mr Bell is particularly successful with his heads of his subjects both in sculpture and in paint …
(Images: used by courtesy and permission of the artist)