He was brought up, an only child, in a two-up-two-down terraced house, in Salford, where his father worked as a lorry driver.

He taught for two years in Manchester, specialising in music, woodwork and metalwork and then entered Goldsmiths College to study painting and sculpture.

Charles Bray drew influence from form and line observed from naval objects, and by the artists Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore.

Later influences from the Cumbria landscape, and rock strata, were instrumental in a change of artistic direction.

The British Library Sound Archive, London, holds an extensive and informative recorded interview with Charles Bray, conducted by Hawksmoor Hughes, on 23 October 2007.

Art historian Robert Roper has published Charles Bray's biography and images of his work.