Steve Dunn's AutoBiography

My childhood in the 1960s and 70s was spent in the bustling University City of Cambridge and as a teenager I was a pupil at the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys, known locally as 'The County'. The only subject I was any good at was art and in my final year I won the school art prize for my efforts.

After leaving school I found employment in a small jewellers shop in Cambridge which gave me a taste for working on tiny things. But not wishing to spend the rest of my days in the basement fixing clocks and watches I took a mighty leap into the unknown and joined the RAF as an aircraft mechanic. At first I worked at Brize Norton on Bristol Britannia and occasionally VC10 passenger planes, in fact my first repair job was to replace a VC10 toilet seat. You could say I started at the bottom. When the 'Whispering Giants' as they were known got too old for the RAF I switched to working on Jaguar front-line squadrons in Scotland, Germany and finally back to England. We took part in excercises in Sardinia, Denmark, Gibraltar and Norway. The RAF then retrained me as an avionics technician and I continued working on the Jaguars at RAF Coltishall in Norfolk, but wearing a white dustcoat instead of overalls. I spent a very happy nine years there and bought a house and dog and became firmly settled in Norwich.

After the RAF I worked in Saudi Arabia for British Aerospace on Tornado ADVs purchased by the Royal Saudi Air Force. Following the (first) Gulf War I wished for a more peaceable and creative line of work and took employment with a reprographics company closer to home in Norfolk where I learned all aspects of the printing industry. Among other things I taught myself the fundamentals of studio photography and how to reproduce paintings as prints for local artists to a professional level.

Around 1996 just for fun I started drawing and painting cars and motorcycles in my spare time. In 1997 I was commissioned to produce a series of classic car paintings for a publishing company in Norwich. I also taught myself website design so that I could show my paintings to a broader audience on the internet. This led to more orders and commissions and with a growing portfolio and many practical skills behind me I turned self-employed in 2005 so that I could finally make a living out of my childhood passion for drawing and painting.

Throughout adult life I spent my leisure time riding and maintaining my treasured motorcycles. I owned two Norton 850 Commandos, three Laverda 1000 triples, then in the mid-eighties I turned to four cylinder Japanese bikes mainly Kawasakis, Yamahas and then Suzukis. I've also owned bikes by Morini, BSA, BMW, Honda, and Benelli, not forgetting some sporty cars by Ford, Alfa Romeo and BMW.

Specialising in car and motorcycle paintings I have produced artwork not only for myself, but also for a number of international clients including the BMW Car Club of America, The Triumph Owners Motor Cycle Club, and the Vintage Motorcycle Club. Lately I'm putting aside some time to do landscape paintings, abstracts and even the occasonal portrait.

Thanks for reading!