Louise Riley-Smith has specialised in portrait painting for over twenty- five years. She studied at Reading College of Art and Design and then with many professional artists including James Horton and Thomas Newbolt and briefly at The Slade and in Florence. She later went to St Petersburg to study privately under Oleg Yaremeov, the retired President of the Academy; also with Maggi Hambling at Morley College, London.


Louise’s sensitive and illuminating portraits have been commissioned by members of the diplomatic and civil services, clergy, lawyers, senior academics, decorated military personnel, businessmen, landowners and their families – and more. She has been selected by the prestigious Royal Society of Portrait Painters and exhibited at the Mall Galleries. In addition, she has been selected for The Discerning Eye and shortlisted for the Garrick/Milne Prize and the Royal Society of Oil Painters. Her perceptive and insightful portraits explore subtle nuances of expression and personality, while capturing the true likeness of each individual sitter. She is one of the most sought-after British portrait painters today.


Her portraits can be seen in several Cambridge colleges including Emmanuel, Jesus, Corpus Christi, Trinity and Robinson Colleges; at NW Brown Ltd; in London University at Royal Holloway (two Principals), in Oxford at Pusey House (Principal) and in many private homes in Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire, Essex, London and Hampshire.


Louise has also painted a number of celebrities portraits including Sir Simon Jenkins, Chairman of the National Trust and writer, and Baroness Susan Greenfield. Other credits include Simon Eliot, recently retired headmaster of Sherborne School, Stephen Hill former Principal of Royal Holloway, Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey, publisher and Chair of the Wildlife Trust and Neil Warmsley, artist.



Public exhibitions:

  1. The Royal Society of Portrait Painters at the Mall Galleries

  2. The Kettles Yard Open Exhibition, selected by Leonard McComb (1996)

  3. The Garrick/Milne Prize for a Theatrical Portrait: shortlist – portrait of Elaine Paige

  4. The Discerning Eye

  5. Cambridge Drawing Society


Solo Exhibitions:

  1. 2016 An Exhibition of portraits of the Head Porters of Cambridge colleges, Pitt Building, Cambridge

  2. 2012 Pitt Building, Cambridge

  3. 2008 Frost & Reed, St James’s, London

  4. 2002 Pembroke College Cambridge