Michael Taylor, sometimes signing as Michael R Taylor (born 1952), is an English artist specialising in figurative oil paintings, still lifes and portraits.
[1] He was born in Worthing, Sussex, and attended Worthing College of Art (1969-70) and Goldsmiths School of Art (1970-73),[2] where among his teachers were Stephen McKenna and Basil Beattie.
[4] Taylor has exhibited inter alia at the Royal Academy,[3]Royal West of England Academy, F.B.A.,[3] Hunting Group, Mall Galleries and Morley Gallery,[3] Beaux Arts London,[3] Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London Art Fair and Waterhouse & Dodd, London.
[5] His awards include the National Portrait Gallery John Player Award, subsequently renamed the BP Portrait Award (1983),[1][3] Millfield Open Art Competition (1989),[3] Changing Faces prize at The Royal Society of Portrait Painters (2002)[6] and the Holburne Portrait Prize at the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath.
[7] Although not primarily a portrait painter, Taylor has painted the guitarist Julian Bream,[1] the crime writer P D James,[1] the musician Andy Sheppard,[7] the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer (commissioned by and for the House of Lords), and the composer John Tavener.