(1779 - 1844)
Augustus Wall Callcott studied at the Royal Academy Schools and under John Hoppner. His first exhibited works were mostly portraits but he soon turned to landscapes. He travelled in Holland, the Rhine and Italy in 1827. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institution, and was elected an Academician in 1810. Ruskin was of the opinion that Callcott ‘painted everything tolerably, nothing excellently’, but his work was popular during his lifetime, although his reputation subsequently declined. He married writer and traveller Maria Graham in 1827 and was knighted ten years later. From 1843 he was Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures. Retrospectives of his work were held at the British Institution in 1845 and Tate Britain in 1981.
