One of the St. Ives group of British painters. His work was mainly abstract, drawing upon nature for inspiration.
 
Born in London, he was educated at Haileybury. In 1933 he began work as a trainee in his family's laundry business. In 1937–38 he studied at Westminster School of Art, and 1938–40 at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and Oxford. In the Second World War he was a conscientious objector, first working on land drainage in Oxfordshire, then looking after monkeys being studied by the zoologist Solly Zuckerman.
 
He settled in Zennor, Cornwall, in 1945, and in 1946 was co-founder of the Crypt Group. He married Suzanne Lethbridge, daughter of the writer Mabel Lethbridge whom he met in Cornwall. He taught at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham, from 1951 to 1956. He was a member of the London Group of artists, and of the Penwith Society of Arts. He died at Penzance, Cornwall. His auction record is £131,000 for his painting In the Streams Path (1958), set at Sotheby's on 11 November 2016. The work had been acquired by the pop star David Bowie in 1995 at the sale of the collection of Sir John Moores.
 
In 2001 he was the subject of Bryan Wynter: A Selected Retrospective at Tate St Ives.