Sir Oswald Hornby Joseph Birley MC RA ROI (1880 – 1952) was an English portrait painter and royal portraitist in the early part of the 20th century.
Birley was born in New Zealand to Hugh Francis Birley while his parents were on a world tour. He was born into an old Lancashire family. Upon returning to England, he was educated at Harrow School, London and Trinity College, Cambridge.
He was the great-grandson of Hugh Hornby Birley, who led the troops at the Peterloo massacre.
Birley served in France in World War I, first with the Royal Fusiliers, where in April 1915 he gained the temporary rank of lieutenant, later transferring to the Intelligence Corps, obtaining the rank of captain and being awarded the Military Cross in 1918.
A favourite of the Royal Family, Birley was well known for his portraits of King George V, Queen Mary, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth II.
He painted several highly regarded portraits of Sir Winston Churchill (to whom he also gave lessons), and also a life-size portrait of Mahatma Gandhi which was the first to be hung in the Lok Sabha shortly after Indian Independence on 28 August 1947.
Other subjects were many war-time leaders such as Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery, as well as Admiral Mountbatten and Air Marshal Trenchard. He also painted the wealthy American financiers Andrew Mellon, Bernard Baruch and J. P. Morgan, the psychiatrist Sir James Crichton-Browne, Welsh architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis and art historian Sir Robert Witt, co-founder of the Courtauld Institute of Art. Birley painted the portrait of Leeds Lord Mayor Sir Charles Lupton.
In 1921, the 41-year-old Birley married the 21-year-old "Irish beauty" Rhoda Vava Mary Lecky Pike. They bought and refurbished Charleston Manor in East Sussex. Rhoda later founded the Charleston Manor Festival there. The couple had two children:
• Maxime Birley (1922–2009), a model and actress who married Count Alain Le Bailly de La Falaise. They divorced in 1950, following a series of her infidelities, including an affair with British ambassador Duff Cooper. She later married John McKendry, the curator of prints and photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Mark Birley (1930–2007), an entrepreneur and founder of Annabel's in London, who married Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart. They divorced in 1975 after her affair with Birley's friend Sir James Goldsmith.
Birley died at his home in London, a week after returning from six-week trip to the United States where he received medical assistance.
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Sir Oswald & Lady Birley .jpg)
The Theatre Box, c.1910 (detail) 
The Spanish Plume, c.1912 
Miss Muriel Gore in a Fortuny dress, c.1919 %20Huntington.jpg)
Arabella (Yarrington) Huntington, c.1924 
George V, c.1928 
Portrait of a girl wearing a blue dress and holding a basket of flowers, c.1932 
Sir Anthony Meyer, 3rd Bt., c.1942 
Richard Carew Pole as a Boy, c.1944 
Sir John Carew Pole, 12th Bt, c.1944 
Princess Elizabeth, c.1950 
Portrait of Winston Churchill, c.1951 
A portrait of Olive Pikeley 
Admiral Sir Arthur J. Power 
Clara Fargo 
Colonel Charles Harold Tetley 
David, 6th Marquess of Exeter 
Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson .jpg)
Field Marshal Viscount Alexander of Tunis, c.1946 
Rhoda 
Kitty of Frying Pan Alley 
Philip Mould & Company 
Portrait of a gentleman in hunting dress 
Portrait of a gentleman 
Portrait of a young woman 
King George VI 
Kyra Nijinska 
Stanley Baldwin ,%2010th%20Duke%20of%20Devonshire%20.jpg)
Right Honourable Edward William Spencer, 10th Duke of Devonshire 
Sir Bernard Rawlings 
The Duchess 0f Roxburghe, Mary Innes-Ker 
The Queen wears the choker as in the portrait by Taylor,
as well as the "True Lover's Knot" broochley
Young black
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