Ray Burgoyne obituary

My father, Ray Burgoyne, who has died aged 80, was a painter, carpenter and musician. He first exhibited his paintings in the late 1980s, and spent the next 30 years organising countless exhibitions across the Essex and Suffolk coastline. Ray was self-taught and arrived in the art world with a seemingly fully realised, studied vision. The extensive body of work he produced mirrored the abstract ballad that was his life – romantic, unpredictable, filled with both childlike simplicity and dark complexity, featuring carnivalesque characters, forgotten landscapes, and painted in pure, deep colours. Born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, Ray was the youngest of two children of Joseph Burgoyne, a greengrocer, and Dolly (nee Nash), who managed the paperwork for her husband’s shops. Ray’s early life, characterised by fierce independence, was spent trying to ride on the back of his pet pig, Rosie, pretending to be one of Alan Ladd’s cowboys, fishing at the end of the pier and drinking in seafront dance halls to the soundtrack of the Shirelles. Ray dreamed of going to art school, but after leaving Wentworth high school for boys, aged 14, was sent to work at a cabinet maker’s as an apprentice carpen

May 10, 2026 → May 10, 2026