Lionel Playford

Lionel grew up in Leeds, West Yorkshire, and studied fine art at Northumbria University and Newcastle University following a period of years working in a shipyard. He is well known in Cumbria and the northeast and occasionally shows outside the region. He has work in the collections of The National Trust, Natural England, Newcastle University and British Telecom among others and has many works in private collections.

Since 2013, he has worked with climate change scientists on art-science projects and research which involved drawing expeditions with scientists to Finland, Helgoland and the deep Atlantic Ocean. In 2017, he was commissioned by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven to create a large multi-panel painting for their new Museum of the Ocean on Helgoland. The same year he was commissioned by the Bridgewater Hall concert venue in Manchester to create a large artwork for their entrance foyer based on his studies of clouds.

Since 2020, he has been working with Durham County Council, Natural England and Hartlepool Borough Council on artworks inspired by the ancient woodlands of the northeast including a large exhibition with Hartlepool Art Gallery and the creation of a youth group artwork as a centrepiece of the exhibition.