He was brought up and educated a Catholic. At seventeen he started work as a ‘slab boy’ mixing dyes for a firm of carpet manufacturers in Paisley in what he describes as a ‘technicolor hell hole’. John studied painting at Glasgow School of Art from 1958 – 1963 and was hugely encouraged by their strong tradition of figurative and expressive painting.
Art schools in the sixties still had life drawing, painting and still life at their core and Byrne was considered a star pupil. He won the prix de Rome scholarship and went to Italy where he visited Assissi to marvel at Giotto’s frescoes, and at the paintings of Duccio and Cimabue. He returned from his time in Italy highly accomplished and confident young artist.
Byrne married in 1964 and had a son and then a daughter the following year. He worked as a graphic designer for Scottish TV and illustrated some book jackets. He returned to work for the carpet manufacturers, this time as a carpet designer.
In 1967, Byrne sent some paintings in a rather primitive style to London’s Portal Gallery signing them ‘Patrick’ and claiming that they were by his father, a Glaswegian newspaper seller. It seems that this was partly to do with John’s amusement at inventing odd characters, and also thinking that a gallery which at the time exhibited self taught artists might not be interested in work by a highly skilled art school trained painter. He was wrong!
From the early seventies onwards John Byrne’s biography reflects his diverse talents, as a designer of theatre sets and record covers. He made an animated film and his first play ‘Writer’s Cramp’ (1977) followed by ‘ The Slab Boys’ (1978) won him the Evening Standard’s most promising playwright award. In 1983 there was a New York production of ‘The Slab Boys’ with Sean Penn, Val Kilmer and Kevin Bacon.
In 2000 as an appreciation of one of their most talented sons Paisley Museum put on a major retrospective. John Byrne continues to exhibit his work at London’s Portal Gallery and to write plays and books.