Hello, I'm William O.

As a passionate artist driven by traditional ideas of how beauty should be represented, I formed the intellectual basis to my work under the tutelage of Professor Regius Peter Davidson of Oxford University. Prior to university I spent two years 'out' working on my paintings, but also wanted to study English Literature and the connection of poetry and prose to art. After graduating with High Honours, I was immediately offered a place at the Prince of Wales' Institute of Architecture. However I was advised by them to grab the opportunity as role of assistant to Alec Cobbe, artist, restorer and collector. Living in at Hatchlands Park, Surrey where The Cobbe Collection is based, I was to assist in various projects including an exhibition for the Queens Gallery, Buckingham Palace and large-scale designs for interiors in historic houses such as Goodwood House, Petworth House and Hatchlands Park. I lived at the latter back in 1996, working with Alec. I then went solo, working on private Country House period decoration and also exhibition design. These included Christie’s London and the Building of Bath Museum, also known as The Museum of Bath Architecture. Over the past 30 or so years, I have undertaken regular portrait commissions for private clients and now concentrate on producing artworks shown in exhibitions and bought by collectors across the world. Professor Sir Roger Scruton, (1944-2020) a renowned writer and philosopher who also made a television documentary in 2009 entitled Why Beauty Matters, said: “William Oxer is not merely a painter; he is a distinctive sensibility, with a poetic vision he explores in many media. His art is affirmative, evocative and forgiving and offers us, in short, a return to the true and serious tradition.” In 2017 I was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), an award granted to individuals that the RSA judges to have made outstanding achievements related to the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.