Background
He was born at Market Street, Denton, Manchester, the youngest of four sons of hat trimmer William Rutherford and his wife Mary Swindells.
He was born at Market Street, Denton, Manchester, the youngest of four sons of hat trimmer William Rutherford and his wife Mary Swindells.
He left school at 14, but while still there attended the Hyde School of Art and continued his studies at the Manchester School of Art under Pierre Adolphe Valette. L. South. Lowry was among his fellow pupils.
He was the first visual artist to present a television programme, and later became President of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. In 1925, Rutherford was the first and youngest pupil to enrol in Walter Sickert"s new school of art in Manchester. His association with Sickert was lifelong, and Sickert referred to Rutherford as "my intellectual heir and successor." In 1931, Rutherford moved to London.
The new medium of television provided opportunities for him to exploit his ability to sketch rapidly.
In 1936-1939 and in 1946, Rutherford presented the British Broadcasting Corporation Television light entertainment programme Cabaret Cartoons, in which he drew variety artists as they performed their acts. In 1950-1956, he starred in his own programme, Sketchbook.
While exhibiting in numerous London galleries, he was invited to hold a series of exhibitions in Borneo in 1957, becoming the first western artist to do southern He returned to Hyde in the late 1950s to 17 Nelson Street and was elected President of MAFA. In his later years, he taught at the Regional College of Art in Manchester, where his pupils included the painter Geoffrey Key.
In 2008 Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council opened an exhibition space in Hyde Library to display permanently the town"s collection of Rutherford works.
, celebrates the life of the artist. There are two Blue Plaques for Rutherford in Hyde. One is on his former home 17 Nelson Street, keeping a studio next door and there is one on Hyde Town Hall.