The Greatest Artists to Come Out of Liverpool
When you think of Liverpool and its link to artists, you will doubtless first go to the likes of The Beatles, Cast or The La’s before you think of people who create physical art.
In fact, the city is significantly better known for its music scene than for its art, which is why most people will jump to that conclusion. Add in the fact that some people might be quick to refer to talented footballers as ‘artists’ and you can see why learning about painters, sculptors and the likes might be quite tricky.
Here, though, is a look at some of the best artists that Liverpool as a city has ever produced.
Samuel Walters
Does Samuel Walters actually count as a Liverpool artist? After all, he moved to the city from London some time in the 1820s, so he is likely to be considered a Cockney first and foremost. Yet it is impossible to talk about art and Liverpool without discussing Walters, who is considered to be one of the most enduring figures of the city’s School of Maritime Art.
Given the fact that it is all but impossible to separate Liverpool from a discussion about the maritime history of the area, it seems entirely fair to include Walters in any conversation about the finest artists from the city’s history.
@seaportmuseum A closer look at the work of artist Samuel Walters. 🎨 #Artwork #Art #FineArt #Painting #MaritimeArt #MaritimePainting #SeaportMuseum #MuseumCollection #MuseumTok ♬ Pieces (Solo Piano Version) – Danilo Stankovic
Although he was taught by his father, himself a maritime artist, the majority of his learning was self-taught. He began to exhibit work in the city in 1830, becoming a member of the Liverpool Academy of Arts 11 years later. Specialising in oil painting and watercolours on canvas, more than 10 of his paintings can be seen on permanent display in numerous places around the city.
Such were the quality of his works that he had various pieces exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1842 and 1861, briefly returning to London before living in Bootle, dying in Liverpool on the fifth of March 1882.
Samuel Walsh
There is an argument that our understanding of bands like The Beatles wouldn’t be as good as it is without the work of Samuel Walsh. He was a member of the art scene in Liverpool at the time that the Fab Four broke through, painting portraits of John Lennon amongst other members of the city’s creative talents.
In 1963, he painted a portrait of Francis Bacon that became well-known. As with Walters, he wasn’t actually born in Liverpool, instead coming to the city from County Wexford in Ireland, via London, arriving in 1960 and exhibiting at the Liverpool Academy a year later on.
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There is no question that Walsh was obsessed with the human form, rarely painting or drawing anything that wasn’t at least tangentially linked to the outline of a person. Whilst it wasn’t just celebrities or famous faces that he sketched and painted, the likes of Winston Churchill, Bobby Kennedy and Kurt Vonnegut all made it onto one of his canvases.
Although he became associated with the Pop Art movement, his work spans numerous different styles. Arguably his most famous piece was one entitled ‘Mike’s Brother’, which was ironically titled as it was of Paul McCartney, brother of Walsh’s friend Mike McCartney.
Bessie Bamber
If you have been waiting for an artist specifically born and raised in Liverpool to crop up in this list, then you might just have to keep on waiting. Bessie Bamber is the closest so far in a geographical sense, however.
Born in Birkenhead, she worked in Liverpool between 1880 and around 1810, specialising in painting domestic pets. Whilst some of those would be puppies and dogs, it was mainly cats and kittens that she became known for, working in oils. She would prefer to work with stuffed animals rather than their living counterparts, often painting on porcelain or opaline glass.
Most of her works are small in size, often coming in on items that were nine inches by six inches. Usually signed with a monogram ‘BB’, she would occasionally work on polished mahogany panels. As far as the records go, there is no evidence that she ever exhibited her paintings, but they still sell for thousands of pounds at auction houses.
In 2004, for example, a picture of three kittens within a pile of books was put up for auction at Bonhams, reaching £2,468 before being sold. The works are often annotated as ‘in the manner of Bessie Bamber, English school’.
Adrian Henri
Another artist born in Birkenhead rather than Liverpool, Adrian Henri is perhaps better known to some as a poet. That is because he is one of the three poets who featured in the best-selling anthology, The Mersey Sound, along with Roger McGough and Brian Patten.
Born in 1932, the family moved to Rhyl when he was six and Henri didn’t return to Merseyside until the 1960s. In spite of the fact that he is best known for his poetry, he was actually a painter primarily and has had retrospectives put on in his name at both Tate Liverpool and the Walker Art Gallery.
Even a lot Labour Party historians are strangely uninterested in Neil Kinnock and the 1992 manifesto, despite the fact that it is (I think?) the only Labour manifesto to open with a poem, ‘Winter Ending’ by Adrian Henri.
— Charlotte Lydia Riley (@lottelydia.bsky.social) Dec 19, 2024 at 10:13
Influenced by abstract impressionists and pop artists, Henri added his own personal signature to his work, which was demonstrated in his strong interest in the urban landscapes and popular culture of the city he called home.
The Entry of Christ into Liverpool is probably his most renowned painting, showing a number of cultural icons heading down Hope Street, with the likes of The Beatles joined by George Melly, the jazz singer, amongst numerous others. An insatiably curious individual, his work was eclectic in its nature and he taught at the Liverpool Art College for a time.
Paul Curtis
It would be wrong to talk about the state of art in Liverpool without even a passing mention of Paul Curtis, who is a working artist in the city at the time of writing. He specialises in street art as well as large murals, creating more than 150 pieces, mostly in Liverpool and the Wirral, in his first three years of work.
It was actually his very first piece of street art that saw him become renowned for his creations, with For All Liverpool’s Liver Birds in 2017 resulting in queues of people wanting to have their picture taken with the wings of the liver birds that he painted at the Baltic Triangle.
Never thought my lifetime would see people genuinely worried about WWIII, depressing times.#Zelensky #Ukraine #standwithzelensky #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/sFvaSBAk7S
— PAUL CURTIS (@PaulCurtisArty) March 1, 2025
The work is credited by many as being the kick-starter for the street art movement that began to dominate the city, taking over the likes of warehouses, start-ups and bars around Liverpool. Curtis has also painted numerous works for both Liverpool and Everton football clubs, such as a tribute to Liverpool forward Diogo Jota and his brother, André Silva, who died in a car crash in 2025.
By the time he was commissioned to create the piece, he had more than 250 public pieces in display around the Merseyside area, including those of Anne Williams, the Hillsborough campaigner, and Bill Shankly.
