Artist Information
Artist
Edwin Riby, ARWS (1866-1927)Role
PainterDate made
n.d.Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born in Scarborough, Edwin Riby became a respected local artist, carver, gilder, picture restorer, frame maker and art seller in Keighley, West Yorkshire, England. He apprenticed with Haydon Hare, a Scarborough fine art publisher and dealer, and later with Messrs Agnew in Manchester. In 1888, he moved to Keighley to work with a Mr. T. Atley and five years later set up his own art shop and fine art gallery business in town. The shop employed eight people and sold art and framing supplies and also did art restoration. The exhibition gallery provided a popular meeting place for local artists. Riby chaired and was an active member of the Keighley Art Club, and he also taught art as Art Master at various local schools, including crystoleum painting (applying colour to an albumen photographic print) popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Riby was a prolific painter of portraits, landscapes and country genre scenes and other subjects on commission. He also painted a series of pictures of old Keighley, which became popular as prints. Edwin was an associate of the British Watercolour Society and exhibited his works mostly locally. Much of his art is held in private collections, although Bradford Museums and Galleries have several examples of his work. And in his later years he toured Canada, painting landscape views.
