Tom Phillips was born in London in 1937. He attended St Catherine’s College, Oxford in 1957, where he read English and at the same time studied drawing at the Ruskin School. In 1961 he went to Camberwell School of Art where his chief source of inspiration was Frank Auerbach. He went on to teach at Bath Academy of Art, Ipswich and Wolverhampton Art College between 1965 and 1972.