About the Society

Our very first exhibition in the Winter Gardens in Ilkley was opened on Saturday February 15, 1981. Billed as the Yorkshire Artist Exhibition, it ran for four days, the main attraction being quite a collection of original work by David Hockney, backed by the 12 leading Yorkshire artists.
We weren't expecting the rush that we got. Artists were coming to hang their paintings before all the stands were up. Members of the public arrived before the artists had hung their work - and several sales were made while the paintings concerned were still on the floor!
The twice-yearly exhibitions went from strength to strength and in 1987 the British Society of Painters was established, with International Founder Members Pietro Annigoni, Rowland Hilder OBE, Terence Cuneo OBE, CVO, and David Shepherd OBE, who is now President.
Since then we have never looked back. We hold four major exhibitions every year - Spring, Summer, Autumn and Christmas, each one opened by a major showbusiness celebrity. And for three years we held a further exhibition at the G-Mex Centre in Manchester, which sadly did not prove as popular as the Ilkley ones, as most of the artists and art-goers preferred the Yorkshire venue. Over the years further exhibitions were held in Bradford, Leeds Town Hall and Cork Street, London, but

David Shepherd
President of the British
Society of Painters
is known all over the world for his paintings of wildlife, especially elephants. But it was not always like that. His early career was, he says, “a series of disasters.” After failing to be a game warden in Africa, he turned to his second choice, painting - and was turned down as “not worth training” and “having no talent” by the first art school he applied to.
   David owes all his subsequent success to the man who trained him, Robin Goodwin, and to the RAF who flew him all over the world to paint aircraft pictures for them - and commissioned his first elephant painting.
   Now he is regarded as one of the world's leading wildlife and landscape artists but also, because of the enormous debt he says he owes to wildlife for what it has done for him, he is known internationally as a leading conservationist. His paintings have raised over £2,500,000 for this cause through The David Shepherd Conservation Foundation.
   David has been awarded the Order of the British Empire as well as the Dutch Order of the Golden Ask by Prince Bernhard for his services to conservation. He has been made a Member of Honour of the World Wide Fund for Nature and has also been awarded an Hon. Doctorate of Fine Arts by Pratt Institute in New York.
   David has been featured in a BBC documentary of his life, been the subject of This Is Your Life and has made a series of six wildlife films for ITV and others. He has written six books, covering all aspects of his life, including wildlife and steam railways.
David is also chairman and founder of the East Somerset Railway, a registered charity raising money for our steam railway heritage and wildlife.

again none was as popular or as busy as the Ilkley ones.
The standard and quality of all the paintings on show has risen remarkably over the years. The exhibitors in each section - Fellows, Members, Associates, Companions, Friends, Art Club artists and even artists showing for the first time - can all be complimented on the standard of their work. And exhibition by exhibition it just gets better and better!
For more information click here to go to the Society’s main website at www.britpaint.co.uk

Pietro Annigoni
First Honorary International Fellow of the British Society of Painters
was born in Milan in 1910. As a child he showed early promise in drawing and his father told him: "You will become a great artist."
  In 1927 he enrolled in the Accademia de Bella Arti and became, he said, a "young man mad about drawing." In 1932 he held his first one man show of paintings and drawings at the Palazzo Ferroni, Florence and quickly became a success.
  He travelled extensively throughout Italy and Europe and after the end of the Second World War he was commissioned by the British Fine Arts Office to sketch the destruction of Florence.
  In 1949 he exhibited several self portraits at the Royal Academy in London where his work causes a stir among artists and art lovers. Seven years later he was commissioned to paint what became his most famous portrait, of the Queen, which received an enormous amount of publicity worldwide and made Annigoni world famous. The portrait itself was used on Commonwealth currency and postage stamps around the world.
  Among his other portraits of the rich and famous are Margot Fonteyn, Princess Margaret, Prince Philip, The Queen Mother, Princess Elena Corsini, the Maharanee of Jaipur; President John F. Kennedy and Pope John XXIII.
   Annigoni died in Florence in 1988 and in 1992 was given a full state funeral interned to his final resting place in San Miniato overlooking his beloved Florence.