William Burns FRSA FSAI (1923-2010) was a painter and architect, born Cecil William Burns in Sheffield. He studied briefly at Sheffield College of Art during the Second World War. Following Army service, during which he helped illustrate the official War Diaries for the North Africa Campaign, he was elected a member of the Armed Forces Art Society. After the war, Burns began to study architecture.
By the early 1960’s he had formed his architectural practice and was later elected to the Society of Architectural Illustrators. Once established, however, he returned to painting as a relief from the unyielding practice of architectural drawing. He exhibited at the Roi and Ra and held his first solo London exhibition at the Twentieth Century Gallery, Fulham in 1987. Burns also became a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Stylistically his work is much influenced by the paintings of Arnesby Brown, Bertram Priestman and Edward Seago.