JAMES WILLIS is an artist, art historian, author and educator from England.
He studied fine art and music at the University of Chester followed by an M.A. in the History of Art at Birkbeck College, London. Following a number of years working in the finance industry James decided to pursue his love of art and began what was to become a varied career working for several notable institutions including Sir John Soane’s Museum, the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL and Makerere University, Kampala.
His enthusiasm for finding inspiration at home and abroad has been shared with many painting groups and travel companies. He is a well-known and popular painting tutor and loves to encourage painting adventures in anyone whatever their experience. Landscapes, Architecture and People feature in his work in both oils and watercolours.
Alongside these arts and education projects he has always continued to make and exhibit his paintings. James is the founder of the Letchworth Arts Centre (Broadway Gallery) which he ran for nearly five years as an independent centre for the promotion and development of local arts in all disciplines.
In 2021 he co-founded Hitchin Creative, an organisation set up to support, promote and resource the arts community of the town.. He has been described on more than one occasion as ‘’the Canaletto of Hitchin’’.
Recent exhibitions have included solo shows at The Coin Street Gallery, Oxo Tower, London, The Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich and The Nehru Centre, India High Commission, London., North Hertfordshire Museum.
His paintings have been twice accepted by the Royal Society of Marine Artists, and the Royal Institution of Painter in Watercolour for their annual exhibitions at the Mall Galleries, London. In 2014 he was one of 15 artists from England selected to exhibit at the Fabriano in Aquarello 2024 exhibition in Bologna.
Website: www.jameswillisart.co.uk
email: [email protected]
insta: james.willis.artist
