Friday, March 6, 2009

Frederick Calvert


[In a Choppy Sea] 1834
oil on canvas
.
born circa 1785-died circa 1844.
Frederick Calvert was a painter, watercolorist and engraver of topographical views specializing in shipping and coastal scenes. He was a native of Cork. In 1807 an aquatint by him of Parliament Bridge, Cork was published. In 1812 Calvert exhibited a View near Rathfarnham at the Society of Artists in Dublin as well as two Dublin views with the Hibernian Society in 1815. Around 1815 the artist moved to England and in that year published four of his drawings depicting The Interior of Tintern Abbey and a book Lessons on Landscape Colouring, Shadowing and Penciling. In 1822 he published a series of lithographs entitled The Forest Illustrated.
In 1827 he moved to London, exhibiting from his studio in Pall Mall views of Dover Castle and Broughton Castle. From 1827 until 1844 he exhibited at the British Institution and at Suffolk Street. In 1830 he published Picturesque Views of Staffordshire and Shropshire, a collection of thirty-nine plates. He also worked for the Archaeological Journal. Watercolors by Calvert are in the collections of the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Oil paintings are in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, the Derby Museum and Art Gallery as well as the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. The Walker Art Gallery’s painting entitled Shipping in the Mersey (inventory number 1493) dated 1830, depicts a similar view to our Liverpool, Lancashire sight but in calmer waters and from a further vantage point making for a less defined shoreline.

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