Julia Sporre

The daughter of the Artist Alan Sorrell (1904-1974) and the watercolourist Elizabeth Sorrell (1916-1991), she grew up in a converted chapel in Daws Heath, southeast Essex, surrounded by trees and woodlands which were to be an inspiration for her later work.

She studied textiles and embroidery under Constance Howard MBE at Goldsmith's College (1973-6) who purchased her work to use as examples in talks and publications. She was taught drawing by Betty Swanwick RA (who was to produce the artwork for albums by rock group Genesis), and she sold her first work at the Royal Academy summer exhibition at the age of 19. Following the death of her father, she turned more towards drawing and painting, and gained a place at the Royal Academy of Arts(1978–81). Whilst a student there her self-portrait gained second prize in the first National Portrait Gallery, London Portrait Award, 1980, now known as the BP Portrait Award. This led to a series of portrait commissions including one from the National Portrait Gallery to paint Michael Ramsey, the ex- Archbishop of Canterbury. Her letters describing this experience were borrowed by Michael Ramsey's biographer Owen Chadwick who then passed them on to the library of Lambeth Palace.

In the 1990s she exhibited at the Maas Gallery with the dealer Rupert Maas, and had a series of paintings purchased by the collector Professor Philip Rieff which were then exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1996. A decade later she was exhibiting with Waterhouse and Dodd, Cork Street.

She was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 2008, the Royal Society of British Artists in 2009, and the Norwich Twenty Group in 2010. Her work is also in the collections of the Beecroft Art Gallery, the Chelmsford Museums, Reading Museum, New Hall Art Collection and Laporte plc. She is a frequent contributor to The Artist magazine.