J.B. Vallely was born in Armagh in 1941, his mother was a teacher from Co. Mayo, his father a headmaster at Blundell's Grange National School, four miles out of Armagh City where J B Vallely received his early education. He sold his first painting at the age of seventeen in 1958. His earliest achievement saw eight of his works purchased for the Irish display at the 1963 World Fair in New York and by 1968 The Irish Times regarded him as 'one of the more exciting Irish painters under the age of thirty'
Over his career he has produced some four thousand individual pieces, among these a hundred or so commissions, which include album and book covers. He has taken part in scores of group shows, has had 38 one-man exhibitions and is a contributor to twenty-five major art collections. Recognition in the Art world has generated for him two hundred and fifty five major awards.

'Vallely's subject matter has remained linked to the past but his feeling for paint is vigorously contemporary....rural, Ireland, it's traditions, its music and it's sports. His interest in traditional culture is almost vocational.'

(John Hefferman, The Irish
Times, 1978)