Painter and teacher, born in Leeds, Yorkshire, where he attended the College of Art, 1947-52. For several years until the mid-50’s he then taught at Harrogate College of Art. On the suggestion of the painter Terry Frost, Bell and his wife sold up their home and motorcycled to Cornwall to work in St. Ives. In Yorkshire Bell had painted industrial landscapes, but in Cornwall his work took a new direction, and while still landscape-based, he became concerned with land-shape and sea interactions, which created abstract pictures. After short periods in Italy, Bell took up a Gregory Fellowship at Leeds University in 1960. A number of teaching posts in Britain and America followed, until in the mid-1970’s he returned to Florida State University, Tallahassee. Bell exhibited with the Penwith Society of Arts from 1956, and at the Tate gallery and New Art Centre in group shows. In 1995 a group of his pictures was exhibited at the Tate Gallery St Ives, and in 1995-6 he was included in the John Moores Exhibition, Liverpool. Bell had a series of solo exhibitions at Waddington Galleries from 1958; Whitechapel Art Gallery; Florida State University; and in 1998 The New Millenium Art Gallery, St. Ives celebrated Bell’s return to Cornwall with his first major show at a private venue since his return to Britain. He is represented in the Tate and the collection of The Arts Council of England.