Ayrton was born Michael Ayrton Gould, In the 1940s, Ayrton participated in the BBC's radio programme
The Brains Trust. He married the novelist and cookery writer
Elisabeth Balchin in 1942 following her divorce from
Nigel Balchin a year earlier. Beginning in 1961, Michael Ayrton wrote and created many works associated with the myths of the
Minotaur and
Daedalus, the legendary inventor and maze builder, including bronze sculptures and the pseudo-autobiographical novel
The Maze Maker (
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967). In 1969, he designed the
Arkville Maze. He also wrote and illustrated a satirical novel,
Tittivulus or The Verbiage Collector (Max Reinhardt, 1953; designed by
Will Carter), an account of the career of
a minor devil whose original remit was to collect slovenly performances of the Divine Office in monasteries, but who develops, as the centuries pass, into a collector of all kinds of verbiage, and finally, in the modern age, mounts a fascistic revolution in Hell. Ayrton was also the author of several non-fiction works on
fine art, including
Aspects of British Art (Collins, 1947). Ayrton died in 1975, survived by his wife. In 1977,
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery organised a retrospective exhibition of his work. His work is included in several collections including the
Tate Gallery, London,
National Portrait Gallery, London,
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Fry Art Gallery, Essex. Ayrton's work was also featured at the
Whitechapel Gallery, London, in an exhibition running from September to October 1955. In 2021, the artist's centenary year, there were exhibitions of his work (
Celebrating Michael Ayrton at
The Lightbox Gallery, Woking, UK;
A Singular Obsession: A Centenary Celebration of the work of Michael Ayrton,
Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden, UK; ''Michael Ayrton's Minotaur Suite
, Kruizenga Art Museum, Michigan, USA), and an illustrated monograph, Michael Ayrton: Ideas Images Reflections''. File:TalosCambridge.jpg|
Talos,
Guildhall Street, Cambridge File:Icarus III by Michael Ayrton, RAF Museum 05.jpg|
Icarus III,
Royal Air Force Museum London File:Demeter Pregnant by Michael Ayrton 02.jpg|
Demeter Pregnant,
Reading Museum ==Selected writings==