James Robert Granville Exley was a British painter, printmaker and teacher. Exley was born in Great Horton, Bradford, Yorkshire on 16th May 1878. He studied at Skipton Science & Art Schools and at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1907. After receiving his education, Exley went to work in Paris for a period. Further along in his life he became the headmaster of Hull Municipal Art School, 1912-1919 and also taught in Cambridge, moving to London in the 1920s. Exley exhibited widely from 1906 and became a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1923. Exley was elected ARE in 1905 and RE (Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers) in 1923, exhibiting at the Royal Academy, Redfern Gallery and Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. He subsequently lived in Grassington, Yorkshire until his passing.