Bill Bowyer was born in Leek in Staffordshire in 1926. He studied at Burslem School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. He was elected Royal Academician in 1981. His portraits of Arthur Scargill and Vivian Richards hang in the National Portrait Gallery.
Bill is renowned not only for his strong portraits but also for his many glittering paintings of the River Thames, often near his home in Chiswick, and for his powerful paintings of the Suffolk coast, especially Walberswick.