Bernard was born in Toxteth, Liverpool, and after National Service studied at Liverpool School of Art, followed by three years at the Camberwell School of Art, London, and then a teaching diploma. After more than a decade of teaching, during which time he was a Departmental Head at the Nottingham College of Education, with a family of five children and his wife Audrey he moved to Newlyn, Cornwall. Here he and Audrey M EVANS set up the Mounts Bay Arts Centre which operated as a residential school for outdoor painting in summers up until 2001.

Both engaged in all aspects of the management of the school  - teaching and administration and domestic work - and exhibited regularly, mainly at NAG but also internationally and in mixed shows nationally. Bernard served as Chairman of the NSA and Council of Management member of NAG over many years. He and Audrey were also mainstays of the international charity AMNESTY over many years, organising fundraisers and exhibitions to draw public attention to the plight of political prisoners everywhere.

His work was carefully executed, representational in style, and often focused on the working port around him at Newlyn.  As Cross points out in his 2002 book on the contemporary artists in Newlyn, he had then embarked on a series of large-scale paintings of the Thames and London buildings at various times of the day and night. Other paintings were done from sketches made from the London Eye.

Bernard Evans died in 2014.