When one thinks of Salford – cobbled streets twisting between red bricks, bustling markets and chimneys piercing the skyline – no work has ever captured the honest grit of this city like that of Harold Riley.
Riley was born in Salford in 1934. He was perhaps the most well-known Salfordian artist following L. S. Lowry and painted numerous figures including popes, princes and presidents. Yet his most precious pieces – the ones people adored at his exhibitions – were those of his hometown.
Salford Mayor Paul Dennett shared his appreciation of Riley’s work in 2017: “No one epitomises the spirit of Salford or has been a truer friend to the city than Harold.”
Riley studied at the Slade School of Art in London in 1951 and won scholarships to study in both Spain and Italy in the following years. Yet even after travelling the globe, he chose Salford – the place where he sold his first painting at the age of eleven – as the city in which to spend the rest of his life.
There is a sincere love for his city that is ever-present across his work. Whilst this passion extended beyond art (he often spoke of the shared ‘enthusiasm for football’ across Salford during his youth), he was destined to spend his life at the canvas. “I always felt I was destined to be more successful with my hands than with my feet,” he said.
“What the artist does is not tell you just what it looks like. He tells you what he feels about what it looks like,” Riley once said. This is evident across his entire catalogue, from his photographs to his paintings and sketches.
Riley’s extensive photographic collection explores the city at a time when, as local historian Doreen Burns said: “Salford did the work, but Manchester made the money.” It was an era in which the community tried its best to survive as the city transitioned away from a solely industrial economy – a time when chimneys fell and apartments soared.
Salford University Archives
Riley’s work is beautiful precisely because it avoids romanticism. Speaking to Salford Now in 2025, Riley’s wife, Ashraf, said: “He was moulded by the city, and he saw Salford during the war and in poverty — he saw that with his own eyes.”
His work focuses on the people and the streets upon which they walk each day. As Doreen Burns observed, Riley truly was a man of the people: “If there was only one word I could give to him, it would be ‘approachable’.
“He was kind and extremely gentle… he would sit and chat to anyone in his gallery.
“He captured real life, but always with that deep affection for his hometown.”
Speaking to Salford Now in 2025, Riley’s daughter Kate said, “He was a true people’s person. He could mix with royalty but would also stop for a street cleaner.
“He would speak to anyone and everyone.”
Riley had a talent for capturing the real “characters” of Salford. Some of his most striking sketches portray beautiful eccentricity: from elderly women wrapped in kerchiefs chattering upon doorsteps, to the haunting silhouettes of his own father shortly before his passing.
That is not to say Riley did not explore artistically. He was the only artist ever to paint South African President Nelson Mandela after being granted six sittings with him, and he produced portraits of many notable figures, including the Duke of Edinburgh, Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and United States President John F. Kennedy.
Yet even after spending time with royalty and sharing dinners with famous figures around the world, Salford remained his priority. Riley also served as Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester for close to 40 years.
Riley and renowned artist L. S. Lowry shared a close friendship, no doubt cemented by their mutual affection for the city. Many of their works share that rigid, often brutal, reality of industrial Salford.
Their friendship began at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery, where, at the age of eleven, Riley won an award for his painting judged by Lowry himself. The piece was sold for 30 shillings, but their lifelong friendship had already been kindled. It is said that Lowry kept his favourite piece of Riley’s, Dogfight, upon his mantelpiece until his death in 1976.
Riley’s work is not merely an artistic collection. It is a social archive – a story of the people of Salford and its community. Salford has changed vastly over the last 100 years, yet the memories of past times remain preserved within his canvases. Although he painted presidents, popes and dukes, Riley’s most authentic work was always that of his hometown.
Harold Riley was more than a Salfordian artist. As Doreen Burns said, “He is Salford.”
