Bryan Illsley, who has died aged 86, challenged categorisation. A largely self-taught painter, sculptor, jeweller, printmaker, potter and poet, he was also the creator of informal and of limited-edition books, the latter in collaboration with the poet Christopher Reid. Illsley wanted above all to be seen as a painter, but to disregard his other activities would do him a grave injustice.
It was in St Ives, Cornwall, where he went in 1963 after a series of temporary jobs in London, that Illsley educated himself along basic design principles, buying a roll of lining paper: “Each evening I painted on it, with Chinese ink and black ink, small squares. One after the other in lines like writing and four or five lines per session.”
