Helen Bradley Portrait Paintings

Helen Bradley was born in Lees near Oldham in 1900. She began her art education at the age of 13, winning the John Platt scholarship to Oldham Art School in 1913. The outbreak of war and parental opposition brought an early end to her artistic career. Bradley only began to paint her distinctive scenes of an Edwardian girlhood at the age of 65. She simply wanted to show her grandchildren how different a place the world used to be when she was a child. In the 1960s, she met L. S. Lowry, who encouraged her in the creation of a narrative style based on her childhood memories and a personally expressive style finally began to emerge. From 1965 until she died in 1979, Bradley achieved international celebrity. Televised documentaries were made of her life, the Northern Ballet adapted her work for the stage and shortly before her death, she was awarded the MBE.