Painter in oil, born and lived in Reading, Berkshire, where he studied art at the university, then at the Slade School of Fine Art, 1927–9. Between 1933–6 Tibble, with Rodrigo Moynihan, was engaged in abstract painting, and they showed in the Objective Abstractions show at Zwemmer’s Gallery in 1934. In 1936 Tibble was also interested in Surrealism, but he was soon to become involved with the Euston Road School, with which he is most strongly identified. In 1938 Tibble participated in Fifteen Paintings of London, an early Euston Road exhibition, at the Storran Gallery. Tibble served in the Royal Air Force in World War II, but was invalided out. In 1946 he held a very successful show at Tooth’s Gallery, figures in interiors in the manner of Degas and Vuillard, which prompted the critic Raymond Mortimer to place him “in the front rank of living English painters”.