Anthony Farrell in-conversation with William Feaver

Anthony Farrell was born in 1945 and studied at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts between 1963 to 1965, and then at the Royal Academy Schools until 1968, winning the Landseer Prize, the David Murray Scholarship and the Connoisseur Prize. After training as an artist, Farrell began to teach part-time from 1976 at numerous schools and art centres. It was during these years, in particular the hot summers, that Farrell began initial studies of people at the intimate beach at Leigh-on-Sea. After many years of work developing these images he began to exhibit the series of paintings in 1982 and won an Eastern Arts Association Fellowship and the Association’s Exhibition Award. Farrell has been a successful applicant of the RA’s Summer Exhibition, having his work displayed continuously between 1975 and 1982 and then frequently, including his 2009 etching Balancing Man. Although his painting Summer at Night was never exhibited at the RA, the theme of the work was commonly used in his other pieces. The artist still continues to work and live on the Essex coast, at Leigh-on-Sea.