TRIBUTES have been paid to a talented artist after his death aged 93. Birtley Aris was born in Sunderland to parents Dorothy and Frederick. He attended Chester Road and West Park Central schools before going on to study at the Sunderland College of Art and Craft. During World War II, he was a Bevin Boy coalminer at Silksworth Colliery. He then went on to work at stained glass studios in Newcastle, London and Brighton, before a stint in the civil service in London, where he met wife Jean Robbins, who died in 2019. Birtley and Jean married in 1955 and in 1960, welcomed daughter Jo.