(1781 - 1835)
Charles Wild was born in London. He was apprenticed to draughtsman Thomas Malton junior who, like Wild, specialised in architectural subjects. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Society of Painters in Water Colours, becoming Treasurer of the Society from 1823 and Secretary from 1827 to 1831. Most of his exhibited works were views of cathedrals and churches in England, Northern France, Belgium and Germany. He made several series of aquatints of English Cathedrals, beginning with ‘Twelve Perspective Views of the Exterior and Interior Part of Canterbury’ (1807). He is best known for producing 58 of the 100 views in William Henry Pyne’s ‘History of the Royal Residences’ (1819). By 1832 he was blind. He died at home in Piccadilly.
