Charles Bartlett was born in Grimsby, Lancashire, and trained as a painter and etcher at Eastbourne School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, London. Since the mid 1950s he has enjoyed a successful career, holding solo exhibitions across the country including shows in London, Southampton, Dudley and Henley-on-Thames. His work can be found in the collections of Birmingham City Art Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Abbot Hall Gallery in Kendal and the National Gallery of South Australia, among others. A major retrospective of Bartlett’s oil and watercolour painting was held at the Bankside Gallery in London in 1997.
From 1960 to 1970, Bartlett taught drawing and painting at Harrow School of Art. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 1961 and a Fellow of The Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) in 1970, eventually becoming President of the RWS from 1987 to 1992.
Formerly a keen sailor, Bartlett lives and works in East Anglia. The region’s distinctive quality of light and the traditional school of watercolour painters that has evolved there have undoubtedly influenced the style and subject matter of his work.
