Francis Nicholson

Lithographs and Engravings of Georgian Britain

By: Gordon Bell

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Hailed by his contemporaries as the “Father of watercolour painting in this country”, Francis Nicholson’s career spanned nine decades. He witnessed the founding of the Royal Academy, the opening of the first public ‘Picture Gallery’, the founding of the National Gallery, and the Inaugural Exhibition of the Society of Painters in Watercolours of which he was a founder member. He was born in Pickering, North Yorkshire in 1753 and for some fifty years painted portraits and scenes mainly in the northern counties. After moving his family to London, he became a fashionable drawing master and an early innovator in the newly discovered medium of “lithography”- the art of making prints from drawings on stone. This book presents an overview of his views of scenery in Britain published between c.1790 and 1830 and provides a link both to the printers, publishers and engravers with whom he worked and to his circle of pupils and patrons. Gordon Bell began his career as a teacher of art in primary and secondary schools. His interests in education took him into research and development in a number of colleges and universities and was appointed Professor of Education in 1988. Since retirement, he has worked with several museums and galleries in exploring the contribution of early British watercolour artists to our understanding of local history. He has been Guest Curator at Hull Maritime Museum, Whitby Museum and Scarborough Art Gallery and most recently, “Francis Nicholson (1753-1844) Painter, Printmaker and Drawing Master” at Ryedale Folk Museum and the Pannett Art Gallery, Whitby.