Kevin MA Cunningham was born in Ayrshire, Scotland in 1964. After studying illustration at Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art, Dundee, from 1982-86 (obtaining a first class honours degree), he went on to work successfully as an illustrator in London, illustrating books by Mark Twain, Frank O'Connor and Anne Tyler amongst others for publishers Pan, Faber & Faber and Penguin.
In 1994 he became a full-time portrait painter after one of his paintings was chosen for the Royal Society of portrait painters exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London, 1994. Cunningham has since exhibited widely.