John Ridgewell, was born at Halstead, Essex on 26 December 1937, son of Herbert Charles Ridgewell (30 July 1897-16 February 1972), a boot & shoe retailer, and his wife Mabel née Lee (21 November 1900-27 June 1990). Educated at St Andrew’s Primary School in Halstead, and at Earls Colne Grammar School and studied at Colchester School of Art 1954-1958 then at Royal College of Art 1958-1961, sharing his time there with David Hockney (born 1937) and Ronald Brooks Kitaj (1932-2007).

Ridgewell married at Halstead in 1960, Marion Jose Sutton (1935-2016), and having graduated from the Royal Academy in 1961, John took a position at Scarborough School of Art, renting a house in Cloughton Newlands before moving to Elm Tree House, Hunmanby in 1962 where they remained until 1966. In 1966, John decided to concentrate on his own painting and to move to Maltings Barn, Great Waldingfield, Suffolk where their son James was born in 1968. After spending some time in Dorset, where young James attended Bryanston school, then at their holiday home in Lastingham, Yorkshire, but in 1984 they returned to Suffolk, living at Campion Hill near Wissington, Nayland until 1993 when they moved to Half Moone House in Stoke-by-Nayland.

A printmaker and a painter in oil of English landscapes which were meticulously depicted with an occasional unusual feature. His mixed shows included New Art Centre; Piccadilly Gallery and the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and his solo shows included Austen Hayes Gallery, York from 1963, Grape Lane Gallery, York 1990; Upper Grosvenor Gallery; Fischer Fine Art, London also locally at the Phoenix Gallery, Lavenham, also abroad in Gothenburg, Salzburg, Toronto, Dublin and Luxemburg but he later concentrated on commission work. He lived at Bury St Edmund’s, Suffolk where he died on 25 September 2004.