Neal Green was a businessman and trawler owner who was the son of trawler owner in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. Neal was keen to be either an architect or an artist but needs must and being one of 11 siblings he was made to leave school at 16 and join his half brothers in his father’s business. At the age of 20 he secured a loan from a Grimsby bank to buy his first trawler and with his brother Harold as partner managed to build up a considerable business based on fish in Grimsby.
Neal was inventive and was keen to exploit the by products of the fish industry which included fertiliser, cattle food, glue, ink, paint, paint brushes and others.
Neal was an intelligent and versatile character, a chess player of at least county standard, land owner, JP and stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal Candidate for Horncastle.
Neal painted from school onwards, he took lessons from William Bartol Thomas of Boston, Lincolnshire and advice from Watson Charlton who was the son of landscape and portrait artist and illustrated books and made watercolour landscapes of the region.
Neal painted at speed in oil on board. His subjects ranged from snowscapes in Switzerland, the harbours and ports of the North Sea and the Lincolnshire Wolds.
He visited London annually to catch up on what was being exhibited in the galleries and the Royal Academy and he exhibited a painting in the Salon in Paris.
He was a modest man who never wanted to sell his work, the work is all unsigned and undated and so it is necessary to have the older members of the third generation of his family to verify approximate dates and times of their production.
