Kelsey Thornton is the son of an artist and potter, who was head of Burnley School of art. Any teaching in making pictures was more a question of osmosis than instruction, since he moved into the art of literature rather than painting, and became in turn Professor of English at the University of Newcastle and then the university of Birmingham. He is a prize winning editor of a variety of poets (Hopkins, Clare, Skipsey, Dowson), but has moved in retirement to drawing and painting, mainly in watercolour. He is happy to be unfashionable.
