The Gallery is honoured to be showing a collection of water colours by
Robert Kilvert (1929-2015)
an artist who lived and taught locally in Weobley
​

Born in Chertsey, Surrey in 1929, Robert had a long and varied career in art that included illustration and commissions for advertising, the press and exhibitions, as well as teaching.  From 1951 to 1962 he was employed by Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd and in 1962 he opened his own design studio - Omega Print and Publicity - in Whitehall, London carrying out a wide variety of work.  He was elected a Member, then Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers.

Throughout this time he was painting and exhibiting his own artwork. Two water colour paintings of St James's Park were exhibited as part of the Spirit of London Exhibition in the Festival Hall and later at the Mall Galleries.  he also developed an interest in collage when attending Heatherley School of Art.  In 1979 he was invited by Roy Ray to become co-prinicipal and teach at the St Ives School of Painting.  It was while working at St Ives that he developed a water colour course and pursued his interest in collage as an effective teaching medium, producing portraits, life studies, landscapes and still life without paint or added drawing.  He wrote articles and ran courses on his distinctive method of working in collage and in 1984 judged the Young Observer collage competition at the International Garden Festival in Liverpool.  He exhibited at the John Campbell Gallery in South Kensington, the Mall Galleries, Selfridges, York University and Herefordshire, and a number of his works are now in private collections.

In 1982 Robert and is wife Julia moved to Weobley in Herefordshire where for the next twenty five years they ran specialised, accredited residential painting courses for professional and amateur artists from around the world.  While introducing his students to the beauties of the Herefordshire countryside, Robert developed his own practice in water  colour, producing a series of paintings and sketches of favourite places, including the Wye at Bredwardine, Queenswood, Eardisland and Pembridge and castles at Wigmore, Hay and Weobley.  Robert died on 1 January 2015 leaving a considerable body of work.