Architects who take up painting often betray their earlier professional training in the straight lines and the precision of their work.  But Tom Kerr,who was awarded his associateship of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1948, is an exception to the rule.  His sought-after paintings are indeed the very opposite to an architect’s drawing, being impressionist, with characteristic, subdued tones, very often in shades of grey.  The overall effect is to inbue the familiar subjects with a mystic almost etheral quality.

Tom Kerr was born in Holywood, Co. Down in 1925 and has lived there all his life with the exception of a few years after he married first in 1954.  Educated at Sullivan Upper School, his childhood efforts with a paintbrush found early encouragement from understanding parents, who provided
young Tom with art books containing some of the world’s masterpieces.  He still treasures those volumes and remembers as a child copying old masters like the Death of Nelson.  He entered newspaper competitions for pen and ink drawings.  Later Margaret Erskine, head of art at the
Holywood school, encouraged his obvious talent.

When asked what started his serious career as a painter, Tom pretends to no high-flown inspiration, remarking that the kids were grown and he was sick of television.  So he bought some paints and brushes and started to work in watercolour.  Nowadays he paintsalmost exclusively in acrylics and oils and his work is always in demand in both Belfast and Dublin.
 
Tom Kerr is also celebrated for the success of the Kerr Art Group.  Over decades the Group, through its exhibitions and the sale of members’ paintings, raised many
thousands of pounds for the good causes it supported.