Henry Bird

Henry Bird (15 July 1909 – 16 April 2000) was an English artist from Northampton who painted murals and female nudes. He also did church murals at St Andrew's Church, Kettering, St Margaret's Church, Denton (1975–76), All Saints' Church, Earls Barton (1935, rood screen), and St Crispins Hospital, Danetree Hospital, and Northampton Guildhall.

He was member of the Art Workers' Guild and the Society of Painters in Tempera.

The modernist architect Will Alsop recalls how Henry Bird taught him drawing with a brick. "He gave me a brick, told me to draw it and promptly left the room. I proceeded to draw it with all its shadows. On his return he went into a rage and chastised me for destroying the vision with shading, shouting: 'What is wrong with a simple line?' He insisted that I redo the drawing with line only so that I could begin to see the brick and its proportions. I drew that brick for two three-hour sessions per week, line only, for three months. Eventually, he admitted that I had mastered the brick and I was allowed to progress onto the tin can. After 18 months it was the nude model. His vision was one of economy of line and discipline. It worked."

Life He was born an only child in a Northampton slum. His father Bill committed suicide after returning disillusioned from the First World War. He was a chorister at St Peter's Church, Northampton. He later said that the "beauty of St Peter's capitals, and the skill with which they were carved, helped to point the way to the kind of life he wanted." and the architect Will Alsop.

He was married to the actress Freda Jackson to whom he was devoted and committed. According to his obituary in The Times, "His first sight of her was her face, suspended halfway up the stage curtain, painted green as a witch in a production of Macbeth at the Royal Theatre, Northampton. With typical decisiveness he said: 'That's the woman for me.'"