Anthony Earnshaw

Who was Anthony Earnshaw?

Anthony Earnshaw was an English anarchist, artist, author, and illustrator.

Earnshaw was born in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. His father, a watchmaker and jeweller, died before he was born. His mother ran the family shop until bankruptcy in 1930, when they moved first to Redcar and then to Leeds. There, Earnshaw attended Harehills School until the age of 14.

He worked as an engineering fitter, later as a lathe turner and a crane driver, while educating himself at the city library. At 20 he became interested in surrealism and, with his lifelong friend Eric Thacker, devised surreal activities such as boarding and alighting from trains at random. In the early 1960s he met several like-minded people, including Patrick Hughes, Ian Breakwell and Glen Baxter. Hughes persuaded Earnshaw to hold a retrospective at the Leeds Institute in 1966, which was followed by an exhibition in Exeter, The Enchanted Domain, to which he was invited by John Lyle.

He began teaching part-time, first at the Harrogate School of Art, then Bradford Art School before leaving engineering altogether in 1972 to take up a fellowship at Leeds Polytechnic. He left in 1985 to concentrate on art.