Painter and teacher, born in Warrington, Lancashire. He studied at Liverpool College of Art, 1959–63, then at Slade School of Fine Art, 1964–6. There he won the Tonks Drawing Prize and Landscape Painting Prize. Landscape remained a main preoccupation, with the countryside around his home in Anglesey, Gwynedd, an inspiration, as in his entry for John Moores Exhibition, Liverpool, 1991–2: Mynydd Eilian, Windy Day, Summer. Other mixed exhibition appearances included The Native Land: Welsh Landscape Painting since 1699, Llandudno, 1979, and The Probity of Art, WAC, 1979–80. His first solo show was at Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, 1967, and he had a retrospective at Mostyn Art Gallery, Llandudno, 1992. Knowles taught at Liverpool Polytechnic from 1967, in 1991 being elected professor emeritus in fine art.