Self-taught artist, Brian Irving, was born in 1931 into a Bradford farming family. He moved to Storiths, above Bolton Abbey, where he married, raised a family, and worked as a sheep farmer. He later became a milkman in Ilkley for 25 years until failing health forced him into early retirement. However, he was able then to concentrate on painting, which up to that point he had fitted in around his work.
Watercolour was his main medium, and he painted the Dales landscape, animals and people, based on his own experiences, observations and memories of working in the Wharfe Valley.
Image: http://www.its-art.co.uk/its_art/brianirving/
Following a successful exhibition in 1981 of his work at the Yorkshire Arts Exhibition, Ilkley, where his work was a sell-out success with visitors, he was given the opportunity later that year for a solo exhibition at the newly-opened Castle Gallery, Ilkley. This proved very popular with local people and his work was again exhibited at the gallery the following year in 1982.
Wharfedale landscape. Image: from a painting in a private collection.
He continued to exhibit his work in the North of England, as well as outside the region at Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour (RI) and Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) shows.
Image: from The Art Shop, Ilkley; link shown below.
In 1983 he took over the running of the Cottage Gallery, Skipton, where, throughout the 1980s and 90s, he displayed and sold his work. He spent the last 30 years of his life living near Kilnsey in the Wharfe Valley.
He died in 2013, and during November 2015 The Art Shop, Ilkley, held a retrospective selective display of his work.