Born in 1942 James Longueville started to paint professionally after a successful career in journalism. Initially inspired by the countryside around his studio in Cheshire, his travels have made him as well known for his portrayal of sunlit squares in France, luminous views of Venice as his familiar British landscapes and waterways. Equally able to work in both oil and pastel, his fascination is with the effect of light and atmosphere on his subject. He paints daily in pursuit of his passion, always searching for a new stretch of country or ancient monument where he can observe the play of light and colour that he portrays so well. His influences are a long line of European landscape artists from Boudin, Constable and the East Anglian School to Wilson Steer and Seago. James exhibits regularly at the Mall Galleries, with the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Society of Oil Painters. He also shows at the Royal Academy and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, where he was elected a member in 1989. He has twice won the Patterson Award at the Pastel Society, being elected a senior member in 1983 and his paintings now hang in corporate and public collections around the world.