Painter, born in London who studied at the National Art Training School (later the RCA) and the RA Schools where he won a travelling scholarship and spent a year in Italy, also visiting Paris and Vienna. His first solo exhibition was held at Leicester Galleries, London in 1907 and he showed extensively at venues that included Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Baillie Gallery, Chenil Gallery, Fine Art Society, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, International Society of Sculptors, Painters & Gravers, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, London Salon, Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, New English Art Club, New Gallery, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Academy, Royal Society of British Artists, Royal Cambrian Academy, Royal Hibernian Academy, Ridley Art Club, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and at the Royal Scottish Academy. He was an excellent academic painter and executed murals at the Royal Academy restaurant. Speed taught for many years at Goldsmiths' College and his interest in craft work resulted in his election as a Master at the Art Workers' Guild in 1916.

Examples of his work are in the collections of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Grundy Art Gallery, Leamington Spa Art Gallery, Manchester City Galleries, Museums Sheffield, National Museums Northern Ireland, National Portrait Gallery, National Trust, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, Richmond Museum, N. Yorkshire, Southampton Art Gallery, Tate Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum and Wolverhampton Arts and Heritage.

With thanks to artbiogs.co.uk

^{Biography from Liss Llewellyn}

Harold Edward Speed [also known as Harold Speed] was born in St. Georges London in Middlesex, London, England on 11 February 1872 and was the son of John Edward Speed (1847-1933), an architect. He initially followed his father's footsteps and began to train as an architect at the National Art Training School in South Kensington, London in 1887, but decided, instead, to pursue a career as a painter. In January 1891 he entered the Royal Academy Schools (RAS) in London where he studied until January 1896. In 1893 he won a RAS Gold Medal and in 1894 was awarded a travelling scholarship which took him to France, Belgium, Italy and Spain. He also visited Vienna.

Speed primarily worked as a portrait and landscape painter. He began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London in 1893 while still a student at the RAS and continued to do so virtually every year for the next six decades. He also exhibited at the Beaux Arts Gallery, Chenil Gallery, Fine Art Society, International Society of Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, Leicester Galleries, London Salon, New English Art Club, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Society of British Artists, Ridley Art Club, and Royal Institute of Oil Painters in London; Royal Birmingham Society of Artists; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; Royal Cambrian Academy in Conwy, Wales; and at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. He also exhibited with the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, of of which he was elected an associate member. His first solo exhibition was held at Leicester Galleries in London in 1907.

The majority of the paintings Speed exhibited at the Royal Academy were portraits. Among his sitters were King Edward VII (1905), King Edward of Belgium (1916), and the politicians George Wyndham and John Burns (1914). In 1895-96 he painted the fresco ‘Autumn’ for the restaurant in the Royal Academy

In 1904 he was elected a member of the Art Workers Guild and was Master of the Guild in 1916. He was also a frequent speaker of the Guild's meetings.

Speed taught at Goldsmiths' College, London for a number of years. He was the author of several books on art including The Science and Practice of Drawing (1913), The Science and Practice of Oil Painting (1924) and What is the Good of Art? (1936).

For much of his career Speed lived in London, but from 1941 he lived mainly at Court Meadow, Watlington, Oxfordshire. He died at 35 Weymouth Street, London on 20 March 1957.