Pinto Pinnock was born in 1956 in Manoharpur, a small town in Bihar, north eastern India, 300 miles west of Calcutta. The youngest of eight children he came to England in 1957 with his parents. The Anglo-Indian family felt they were driven out of India by increasing political hostility. Pinto's family left a life of luxury to become "working-class" in the north east of England. Pinnock is a racial and religious melting-pot. His grandparents were German, Portuguese and Indian. His grandmother, a German Jewess, was sent to India to marry a Portuguese Catholic from Goa! Pinnock feels this "confusion" of backgrounds influences his art and has enabled him to create his own eclectic mix of styles and techniques.