Posts in Category: English
William Blake
William Blake, November 28, 1757–August 12, 1827, was an English artist, engraver, poet, and printer, born in London. He trained at Henry Pars’s drawing school and as an engraver with James Basire before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1779.
Blake supported himself chiefly through engraving and book illustration, working with his wife, Catherine Blake, to print and hand-color his illuminated books. He also made watercolors and prints for such patrons as Thomas Butts and John Linnell, and produced major late designs for Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Blake spent his final years in London, continuing to draw, engrave, and write until his death. His works are held in major collections including the British Museum, Tate, the Morgan Library & Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Yale Center for British Art.
William Henry Fox Talbot
William Henry Fox Talbot, February 11, 1800–September 17, 1877, was a British photographer, scientist, and writer. Born at Melbury House in Dorset, he was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. His mother, Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, took an active role in his early education. He lived at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire.
Talbot began his photographic experiments in the 1830s. He developed photogenic drawing and the calotype, a paper negative process that allowed multiple positive prints from one negative. He shared scientific interests and correspondence with John Herschel and David Brewster, and announced his photographic process in 1839.
His photographs appeared in The Pencil of Nature (1844–1846), an early book illustrated with original photographs, and Sun Pictures in Scotland (1845). He died at Lacock Abbey. His work is held by the National Science and Media Museum, the British Library, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, among other collections.
Sir Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds, July 16, 1723 – February 23, 1792, was an English painter and one of the leading portraitists of eighteenth-century Britain. Born in Plympton, Devon, he was the son of Samuel Reynolds, a clergyman and schoolmaster. Reynolds received his initial artistic training from Thomas Hudson in London and later traveled extensively in Italy between 1749 and 1752, studying the works of Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and other Old Masters. Upon returning to England, he established a highly successful portrait practice in London. In 1768 he became the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts and was knighted by King George III.
Reynolds specialized in portraiture, developing what became known as the British form of the Grand Manner. Drawing on Renaissance and Baroque precedents, he sought to elevate portrait painting by combining likeness with references to classical history, mythology, literature, and allegory. His sitters included members of the royal family, aristocracy, military officers, actors, writers, and intellectuals. Among his most notable portraits are those of Sarah Siddons, David Garrick, Omai, and numerous leading figures of Georgian Britain.
As president of the Royal Academy, Reynolds delivered a series of influential lectures known as the Discourses on Art, which shaped artistic education in Britain for generations. He was associated with many of the leading cultural figures of his era, including Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, and James Boswell. Reynolds's works are held by major collections including the National Gallery, Tate Britain, the National Portrait Gallery, the Wallace Collection, the Royal Collection, the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and numerous regional museums and historic houses throughout the UK and abroad.
Richard Parkes Bonington
Richard Parkes Bonington, October 25, 1802 – September 23, 1828, was an English painter born near Nottingham who spent most of his short life in France. He first studied with Louis Francia in Calais, then entered the Paris studio of Antoine-Jean Gros, where he became friends with Paul Huet and met Eugène Delacroix.
Bonington painted landscapes, coastal scenes, architectural views, and historical subjects in watercolor and oil. He traveled through Normandy and Picardy, visited England in 1825, and journeyed through Switzerland to Venice in 1826. At the Paris Salon of 1824, he received a gold medal alongside John Constable and Copley Fielding.
Bonington died of tuberculosis in London at the age of twenty-five. His work is held by the National Gallery, Tate Britain, the Wallace Collection, the Louvre Museum, and other major public collections.
Laura Knight
Laura Knight, August 4, 1877 – July 7, 1970, was an English painter and printmaker. She became one of Britain’s most successful artists of the twentieth century, known for portraits, theatrical subjects, landscapes, and scenes of everyday life. In 1936 she became the first woman elected as a full member of the Royal Academy of Arts since its founding in 1768.
Knight studied at the Nottingham School of Art, where she met fellow artist Harold Knight, whom she married in 1903. The couple worked in artists’ colonies at Staithes, Laren in the Netherlands, and Newlyn in Cornwall before settling in London. During both World Wars she received official commissions, producing paintings of military training, industrial workers, and the armed services, including the celebrated wartime painting Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-Ring.
Her work frequently depicted performers, dancers, circus artists, gypsies, and backstage theatrical life, alongside portraits and landscapes. Knight was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1929 and continued exhibiting until late in her career. Her paintings are held in major public collections throughout the United Kingdom and beyond.
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner, English painter, April 23, 1775–December 19, 1851
