Background
Peter Murphy was born in Leeds, England, and educated at Jacob Kramer College of Art and the University of East London.
Peter Murphy was born in Leeds, England, and educated at Jacob Kramer College of Art and the University of East London.
Leeds College of Artist University of East London.
He trained with iconographer Guillem Ramos-Poquí. Murphy uses traditional techniques from medieval altar painting, including egg tempera paint and gilding with gold leaf. He has led workshops in Byzantine painting techniques on the Greek island of Skyros.
He has been commissioned by a number of churches in the United Kingdom, notably Tewkesbury Abbey and the church of Street Mary Redcliffe in Bristol.
He has also been employed by a number of museums. In 1998 he recreated a triptych by Simone Martini for the Barber Institute of Fine Arts.
He was one of a team on a Rolf Harris television show which recreated a Botticelli painting in a week. As well as traditional iconic subject matter of saints and madonnas, he has used the same techniques to depict rock heroes, including Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon.
In 2007, Murphy painted twelve "vibrant images" for a new shrine to Saint Ethelbert, king and martyr, in Hereford Cathedral, where the saint is buried.
The images, painted in his usual Byzantine technique, tell the story of the saint and are incorporated on a seven-sided wooden structure around a pillar to the east of the high altar. Robert Kilgour, cathedral architect, designed the structure, which was made by Stephen Florence. In 2013 Murphy founded the Street Peter"s Centre for Sacred Art in the Medieval Church of Street Peter"s in Canterbury England to teach traditional Byzantine and Early Italian painting techniques.
He is a member of The Society of Tempera Painters and runs courses teaching these traditional techniques.