Biography

Raymond Martinez is of Spanish-Irish parentage and was born in Barry, South Wales. After attending Cardiff College of Art, he moved to London to take up his place at the Slade School of Fine Art. He was awarded the Abbey Major Scholarship during his post-graduate year at the Slade, which took him to the British School of Rome for a year. This was extended for a subsequent year when he received the prestigious Gulbenkian Foundation Award.

While in Rome, he joined the Lefevre Gallery in London and exhibited there frequently over the next few years. He has also exhibited in Rome, Florence, Florida and Tokyo. His work is included in a number of public collections including: the Ministry of Works, Castle Museum Nottingham. Contemporary Art Society of Wales, Hertford College at the University of Oxford, and the Modern Museum of Art in Puerto Rico.

Private collectors of his work have included: the Princess of Hess, Sir J. Lyons, Lady Wolfson, the Earl of Rothes, Sir Robert Ardeane, Lord Kenilworth, Sir Anthony Hornby, L.S. Lowry, Robert Morley, David Niven, Curt Jergens, Francis Durbridge, Eric Ambler, Victor Hazen and Derek Hill.

"As a painter I have devoted my life's work to exulting the wonders of nature. Painting for me should have a timeless quality. This I consider even more important as we are inundated with changing fashions and fads. Early on in my career I decided to withdraw from exhibiting in order to devote my time to investigating nature with no distractions. I continue to live in Italy in Tuscany near the town of Regello in the Val d'Arno. It is here that I create most of my work."