Ralph Lillford was born in Doncaster in 1932. After his national service in the Army in the Suez Canal Zone (1952-54), he attended Doncaster School of Art and the Royal College of Art (1954-57), where he studied under John Minton, Leonard Rosoman and Carel Weight. Following a PhD on William Hogarth, Lillford later became a teacher himself, a position for which he was much revered. He began teaching at Barnes Secondary School (1957-60), followed by several appointments lecturing at Richmond College from 1983 onwards. He also lectured part-time at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art.

Throughout his career, Lillford valued the importance and lessons of travel to inform his practice. Carried by inspiration, he drew and painted in Crete, Russia, Egypt, America, Ireland and all across the European continent.

The Channel Tunnel and subsequent inauguration of the Eurostar linking continental Europe to Britain captured his imagination. He was privileged to be the only artist allowed down to document the excavations as they were taking place, an undertaking he documented with care and a degree of fantasy. An exhibition of the corpus produced during this unique period and opportunity in the Channel Tunnel was organised at Imperial College in 1992.

Lillford’s works have been shown or purchased by the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Society of British Artists, Brunel University, Imperial College, Gloucester College of Art, the Hermitage and Pushkin museums in Russia, the National Army Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Imperial War Museum, among others.

After a long and celebrated career as an insightful and astute teacher, Lillford moved to Australia where he continued to paint until his passing in 2019.