Richard Bagguley
Richard Bagguley born November 12, 1955 in is an international muralist and artist.
He spends much of the year traveling, dividing his time between on site commissions and his studio in London.
Early life and education
Born November 12th 1955 in Shoreham by Sea His parents, both actors, moved to Hampshire when he was 1 year old because of his mother's interest in horses and his father's new career as a presenter at Southern Television. Bagguley was educated at Reed's School in Cobham Surrey, before studying photography at The Arts University College at Bournemouth followed by a brief spell as photographer and illustrator for The University of Hull magazine.
At 21, Bagguley left for Latin America. For 8 years he traveled the world, dealing in textiles whilst photographing and drawing the people of South America, Asia and Australia.
Finally settling in London, in 1985 he turned to mural and Trompe-l'œil work.
Murals
From 1988 Richard started receiving commissions in London from the wealthy Indian community notably Arjun Waney and Lakshmi Mittal before attracting international commissions culminated by a six year period in Istanbul working for many of Turkey’s major industrial families including the chairmans of Doğuş Group and Koç Holding and completing over 450 private and commercial commissions in seven countries.
Artistic career
In 2000 he started to work on canvas, painting a series on Tribal art for the River Nile gallery in Spain and portrait commissions in the UK. In 2002 he started on a new series of paintings topical social commentary social realism which formed the body of work first shown in the Chelsea Arts Club in March 2009. At the same time the documentary "Heaven, Hell and Bagguley" inspired by the contrast in the artists work was made by Max Thurlow, this and his latest body of work under the same title was shown at the Maverik showroom at the end of October 2009. In the same month Richard staged a modern crucifixion with performance artist Stephen Howarth as Jesus outside Oxford Circus underground station at rush hour.
The event was photographed by Andre Camara and reported on in several newspapers including The Independent,The Telegraph and The Sunday Express. From those images Bagguley painted a 1.5 m x 2.5 m canvas with 40 people occupying the space. This brought him to the attention of the church followed by an article in The Baptist Times, the Reverend Dr. Brian Leathard having seen his work in the Chelsea Arts Club invited him to put on an exhibition at St Luke's Church, Chelsea (October 29 – November 11, 2010).
As artist in residence at St. Luke's Bagguley painted a contemporary portrait of Luke the Evangelist which is on permanent display at the church.
His method of using real people and events in his paintings falls under the label of Social Realism
Portraits
Various, including John Milius on display at University of Southern California
Clifford Thurlow private collection, Roxana Valdivieso private collection.
Richard Bagguley is a member of:
- An Association of Professional Muralists - UK
- National Society of Mural Painters - USA