James Spencer Taylor

(1921 - 2010)

Artist's biography

  • Born: 7th May, 1921 -  died 13th March 2010
  • Art Education: Burnley School of Art 1935-40; Slade School of Fine Art, Oxford 1940-41; Royal College of Art (RCA), London 1945-48 (ARCA)
  • Employment: Lecturer Bolton College of Art 1948-80, returning to live in Burnley in 1984 (upon retirement).
  • Affiliations: RCA, Member of Manchester Academy of Fine Art (MAFA).
  • Exhibitions: MAFA (1950-2010),  Royal Academy (Summer); RWS (Open); RWS ‘Contemporary British Watercolours 1982’; Royal Institute; private galleries, and several one-man shows at public galleries in the North (3 being at Towneley Hall, Burnley).
  • Commissions: Granada ITV (1986) - a set of 9 watercolours, used in the episodes of J.B.Priestley’s  Lost Empires. Many landscapes and architectural subjects in watercolour and oil. Many bound books and calligraphy, especially ecclesiastical, and commemorative (eg, for the Queen).  Graphics for the Mid-Pennine Association for the Arts.
  • Media:
    • Fine Art: Wood Engraving, and in all the Etching and Graphic processes, as illustrator and fine printmaker.
    • Book binder and leather work:  Hand bound books, and other items, using personally designed tools for embossing (eg, with gold leaf).
    • Painting & oils: Figurative, based on direct sketching and study from Nature and natural phenomena.
    • Indexed sketches: over 3,500 and more serious studies, entirely in sketchbooks, often used to inform paintings, but also for ‘creative joy.’
  • Where: Mostly England (particularly the North West, and also East Anglia, North Wales, and in the North East).

Further details:

James S. Taylor was one of a handful of Burnley people to be awarded a Stocks-Massey scholarship to study art at the Royal College of Art. In the earlier post-war years he worked in Wood Engraving, Etching and Graphic processes, as an illustrator and fine printmaker, while working at Bolton College of Art.

Leather bound books, decorated with gold tooled designs and leather inlay, are held by the Queen, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and many northern churches. Napkin rings were also leather covered and selected as official coronation souvenirs at the Crafts Center of Great Britain to tour the world as part of the 1953 commonwealth exhibition. He was a member of the Red Rose Guild Crafts Group who exhibited at the Whitworth Art Gallery , Manchester. After ‘retirement” he went on to exhibit paintings at the Royal Academy; the Royal Watercolour Society, the Royal Society of British Artists Royal Institute, Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, various private galleries. He had one-man shows at Towneley Hall, Burnley, Bolton Museum and Art Gallery and the Howarth Art Gallery, Accrington). Granada ITV (1986) commissioned him to produce a set of 9 watercolours, featuring Pamela Anderson, as props in the episodes of J.B. Priestley’s Lost Empires.

He was also student/historian of the 18-20th century English watercolour landscape school. He wrote the biography of Noel Leaver (1889-1951)(Published by Burnley Borough Council, 1983, in conjunction with a retrospective exhibition for Leaver at Towneley Hall, Burnley, Lancashire).

He enjoyed 30 years of healthy retirement during which he made over 3,500 indexed sketches, and studies primarily directly from landscape subjects. This connection with the natural environment was a creative joy in its own right and was the main basis for his paintings. In his own catalogue of work between 1973 and 2006 he describes over 500 signed watercolour paintings and over 50 oil paintings. A further 100 signed watercolour paintings have since been documented in the catalogue. He described his work as ‘Figurative, based on direct sketching and study from nature’. Painting and sketching, exhibiting and selling prints took James and Joyce all over the country but the landscapes and skies of North and East Lancashire, West Yorkshire and the Lake District provided the greatest enjoyment and inspiration.

He had an incredibly productive life and leaves a lasting legacy of his art for many to enjoy.

Availability of the artist’s work

Work is held in private and public collections: primarily Towneley Hall, Burnley. Also, 20 watercolours and oils were reproduced as limited edition (up to 750), signed prints. Approximately 100 remain unsold of his extensive watercolour of Kilnsey Crag, Yorkshire. In 2008, six personal bookbinding tools and six bound books, hand-tooled by the artist, were donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.