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	Byrne, John Boy with Leaf Watercolour/ink/crayon on paper 23 x 61cms. (9 x 24ins) £3,250 Contact us about this painting








	Byrne, John Clown with Cat Gouache/pen&ink on paper 46 x 31cms.(18 x 12ins) £4,700 Contact us about this painting








	Byrne, John Getting Away with It SOLD Watercolour/ink/crayon on paper 12 x 20cms. (5 x 8ins) £950 Contact us about this painting








	Byrne, John Love's Arrow Oil on Canvas 114 x 104cms. (45 x 41ins) £25,000 Contact us about this painting

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Byrne, John

Biography

John Byrne was born in Glasgow in 1940. He was brought up and educated a Catholic. At seventeen he started work as a ‘slab boy’ mixing dyes for a firm of carpet manufacturers in Paisley in what he describes as a ‘technicolour hell hole’.
John studied painting at Glasgow School of Art from 1958 – 1963 and was hugely encouraged by their strong tradition of figurative painting.

Art schools in the nineteen sixties still had life drawing, painting and still life classes at their core and John Byrne was considered a star pupil. He won a scholarship to Italy where he visited Assissi where he marvelled at Giotto’s frescoes, and at the paintings of Duccio and Cimabue . John returned from his travels a highly accomplished and confident young artist.

Byrne married in 1964 and had a son and then a daughter the following year. He worked as a graphic designer for Scottish TV and illustrated some book jackets. He returned to work for the carpet manufacturers, this time as a carpet designer.

In 1967 Byrne sent some paintings in a rather primitive style to London’s Portal Gallery signing them ‘Patrick’ and claiming that they were by his father, a Glaswegian newspaper seller. This was partly to do with John’s amusement at inventing odd characters, and also thinking that a gallery which at the time exhibited self taught artists might not be interested in work by a highly skilled art school trained painter. He was wrong! Portal exhibited his work with great success.

From the early seventies John Byrne’s biography reflects his diverse talents, as a designer of theatre sets and record covers. He made an animated film. His first play ‘Writer’s Cramp’ (1977)was followed by ‘ The Slab Boys in’(1978)and won him the Evening Standard’s most promising playwright award. In 1983 there was a New York production of ‘The Slab Boys’ with Sean Penn, Val Kilmer and Kevin Bacon.

In 1986 John wrote the immensely successful television series ‘Tutti Frutti’starring Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson and Richard Wilson. This was followed by another series ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’ with Tilda Swinton. In 1993 John’s play about the two Scottish painters ‘Colquhoun and McBride' was put on to great acclaim.

John is currently working on a novel, an autobiography, making prints and paintings in between his family life with Tilda Swinton and their twins.

One man show Fine Art Society London 2005.