CROCKFORD, Bill

1932 - ?

Billie H. Crockford was born at Edmonton, London in 1932, only child of Henry Archibald Crockford (3 July 1908-1987), an electrician, and his wife Victoria May née Fuller (11 June 1912-1991), who married at Barnet in 1931 and in 1939, were living at 101 Greenham Road, Hornsey, Middlesex. Bill grew up in London with his eyes trained on the then plane-filled skies. As a teenager in the post-war years, he joined the Air Training Corps and went on his very first flight in an Avro Anson at Thorney Island Airfield near Portsmouth. Deciding to train as a pilot, but his attempt to join the Fleet Air Arm failed owing to poor eyesight when he had to find an alternative career. As he enjoyed drawing, architecture was an option and, following two years of National Service in the army, he was employed as a trainee architect, simultaneously studying at night school for eight years to qualify. He completed his studies and in 1961 become an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects and certified as Fellow in 1969. Besides his work on the three-dimensional form of buildings, Bill became interested in sculpture which became his spare-time passion for the next forty years. He then turned to the more immediate expressiveness of painting and combined his old passion of flying with his new one. His work of recent years has primarily been devoted to aviation painting but landscapes, seascapes, still life, life drawing and architecture also have their place in his portfolio. He married at Hendon in 1954, Margaret F. Fuller and they lived at Hawstead, Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk. A member of the Guild of Aviation Artists and a member of the Bury St Edmund's Art Society and has had exhibitions at Edmund Gallery, Bury St Edmund's and at Church Walks exhibition in Bury St Edmund's and elsewhere.

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Works by This Artist