 William Cunningham was born in 1946. He grew up near Crossgar, Co. Down and went to University at Queens, York and London. Up until 1978, he lectured for several years, then he had his first exhibition at the Tom Cromie Gallery after which he decided to go professional. Apart from tuition at school William received no formal artistic training, he is largely self taught. His success may best be explained in his quest to capture the atmosphere of local landscape. Although he has a wide variety of subject matter, still he returns to the vibrant colours of cornfields and poppies, sunsets and sails and of moonlight and lillies. His skill of painting water with its light and many reflections has always drawn admiration William has never felt that he has arrived, he is always striving to be better to be more vigorous and lively with his colour, to keep developing and changing approaches, in one word to one day attain the perfect. Over the past twenty years William has had many successful exhibitions. He has exhibited in the Tom Cromie Gallery, the Oriel (Dublin), Combridges (Dublin), the Eakin Gallery and many others. |