Toby Wright was born and raised in the south of France. Educated in France, England and Italy, he spent many years drawing and studying the natural world. Toby began his art studies at Swindon University in England, earning a degree in illustration in 1998. Dissatisfied with much of the instruction he received, he enrolled at The Florence Academy of Art in 1999 where he finally found a realistic painting program that believed in traditional artistic values. Toby writes, “It opened up a world of art that I had been told had been lost, and that was in most places being ignored in favour of chasing the next original shocking concept. It was here that a student could build confidence and a solid foundation for understanding the visual language through the philosophy of the old masters." After graduating from the Academy, Toby was invited to teach at the institution and later became a principal instructor, teaching classes in the human figure, portraiture and still life. With a return to traditional values, Toby is inspired by the Old Masters and all his paintings are from life. It is only in this way that he can hope to capture the presence of a person, or the depth of a landscape. In recent years Toby’s career has taken him all over the world. His recent expeditions to the Arctic has produced a wonderful collection of landscape paintings which we are delighted to be exhibiting this Winter.