Hubert Andrew Freeth, painter, draughtsman, engraver and teacher, was born in Birmingham, England on 29 December 1912. He studied at the Birmingham College of Art and in 1936 won a Rome Scholarship for engraving and subsequently spent three years at the British School in Rome. During World War II, Freeth served as a major with the Intelligence Corps in the Mediterranean theatre and was loaned to the Royal Air Force Middle East as an Official War Artist. After the war, he settled in London where he taught at St. Martin’s School of Art and Central School of Arts and Crafts.

Freeth was elected to the Society of Painter-Etchers in 1947 and joined the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1949. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1955 and elevated to RA on 22 April 1965. Freeth was also a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolor and served as the society’s president from 1974-1976. His work is represented in the collections of the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Academy, London; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

H. Andrew Freeth died in London on 26 March 1986.