James Lloyd

Frederick James Lloyd (12 October 1905, Alsager, England – 1974) was an English artist. He became famous for his paintings, mostly of animals and country landscapes. He was the first living self-taught artist to have a painting hung at the Tate in London, titled Cat and Mouse. Life Lloyd was the son of a policeman who had taken up farming. He had worked on his father's farm until the age of 19, when he too joined the police force. He had a variety of jobs before the war: gas-works stoker; bus conductor; builder's labourer; lamp-lighter; until he was accepted for the famous and exclusive British Army regiment of the Coldstream Guards. He served with distinction in his regiment overseas during the war. On demobilisation he married Nancy, she was a teenager and he in his forties, he returned to the land and took a job as a wagoner in Shropshire. He, his wife and four children bought a small holding at Triangle, near Halifax, in the Pennines. Although he had done some paintings as a young man, it was not until he was forty, that he began to paint in earnest. He and his family moved to Skirpenbeck, East Riding of Yorkshire in 1950. He took on the job as a cowman. There were now so many paintings, laboriously constructed dot by dot (pointillism). His wife Nancy decided it was time that Lloyd's work was seen by more people. Without telling her husband she wrote to Sir Herbert Read and he paid Lloyd a visit to see his paintings, and bought a couple of them. Herbert Read sent some to various galleries in London.