He was married to the quilt artist Dinah Prentice and since 1990 had lived and worked in Malvern, Worcestershire.

[6] In 1957 he did national service in the Royal Artillery,[4] returning to the Birmingham School of Art to teach from 1959.

Prentice taught at the Faculty of Birmingham Polytechnic between 1971 and 1986, initially in charge the experimental workshop, and has been a visiting artist at Trent Polytechnic, the University of Nottingham, the Ruskin School and the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.

Over the subsequent meal the two discussed the lack of support provided to local artists by Birmingham's existing galleries, and decided to start a new organisation to "invigorate the city with progressive ideas about art".

Prentice recruited three fellow artists from the School of Art – Jesse Bruton, Robert Groves and Sylvani Merilion – and in 1965 the four established the Ikon Gallery in a kiosk in Birmingham's Bull Ring.