Harold Riley 1934 - 2023, sold his first painting to the Salford Museum and Art Gallery when he was just 11 years old. He wont a scholarship to Slade, a travel scholarship to Italy and a British Council scholarship to study art in Spain. After his National Service, he returned to his beloved Salford where he stayed and worked for the rest of his life.
Harold was great friends with the renowned writer Shelagh Delaney - A Taste of Honey; Dance With a Stranger - of whom he did a portrait and to whom he gifted many of his paintings. This oil is one that represents a Salford of their Childhood that would inspire their work. In 2014 he unveiled a plaque on the childhood council home of Shelagh Delaney. Their friendship lasted a lifetime.
" She was one of the people in my life that at school we were as they say in Salford , 'going out together ' "
This painting has come from the family of Shelagh Delaney.