Abbott, Lemuel Francis [Samuel] (1760/61–1802), portrait painter, was the elder son of a clergyman in Leicestershire—probably the Revd Lemuel Abbott (d. 1776), curate of Anstey, later vicar of Thornton, and his wife, Mary. In 1775, at the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to ...
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William Aikman of Cairnie (1682–1731) self-portrait Scottish National Portrait Gallery
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Rosalind K. Marshall
Aikman, William, of Cairnie (1682–1731), portrait painter, was born on 24 October 1682 at Cairnie, Forfarshire, the second son and fifth child of William Aikman (1646–1699), laird of Cairnie and advocate, and his wife, Margaret Clerk (d. after 1729), daughter of John Clerk...
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Duncan Macmillan
Aitchison, (John Ronald) Craigie (1926–2009), artist, was born at 12 India Street, Edinburgh, on 13 January 1926, the second son of Craigie Mason Aitchison, later Lord Aitchison (1882–1941), and his wife, Charlotte Mary Forbes, née Jones (d. 1970). Craigie was his paternal grandmother's maiden name. His father was a distinguished Scottish lawyer, Labour then National Labour MP for ...
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(John Ronald) Craigie Aitchison (1926–2009) by Snowdon, 2003 © Snowdon / Camera Press London
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Susan Sloman
Aken, Joseph van (c. 1699–1749), drapery painter and painter of genre and conversation pieces, was born probably in Antwerp, where he first practised as a painter. The title to a mezzotint of him by John Faber after Thomas Hudson gives his name as ...
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Deborah Graham-Vernon
Alcock, Edward (fl. 1745–1778), portrait and miniature painter, is first recorded in 1745, living in Liverpool with his mother. Nothing is known of his early life. In Liverpool he met the young carver and gilder Thomas Johnson, to whom he advanced money to set up in business ...
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Ernest Radford
revised by Emma Rutherford
Alefounder, John (1757–1794), portrait and miniature painter, was born in September 1757, probably in Colchester, Essex, the son of an architect and surveyor. He entered the Royal Academy Schools, as an architect, on 4 October 1776, aged nineteen 'Sept last' (...
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Patricia R. Andrew
Alexander, Cosmo (1724–1772), portrait painter and traveller, was born probably in Aberdeen, the son and pupil of the Aberdonian painter and engraver John Alexander (1686–c.1766), who had worked in Rome from 1711 to 1719, and his wife, Isobel Innes. John Alexander...
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Cosmo Alexander (1724–1772) self-portrait, before 1745? Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collections
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David Allan (1744–1796) self-portrait, 1770 in the collection of the Royal Scottish Academy, on loan to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
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Allan, David (1744–1796), portrait and genre painter, was born at Alloa, Clackmannanshire, on 13 February 1744, the son of David Allan, shoremaster, and Janet Gullan. Allan, who was born prematurely, seems to have been asthmatic and never enjoyed good health. He showed an early proclivity to art, and was dismissed from school for caricaturing his teacher. At eleven, on 23 February 1755, he was apprenticed to the ...
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Anderton, Henry (1630–1667), portrait painter, was a pupil of Robert Streater, serjeant-painter to Charles II, and initially painted in all the genres like his master. His Mountain Landscape (c.1660) is in the Tate collection. After studying in Rome, probably in the early 1660s, he returned to ...
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Angus, Margaret MacGregor [Peggy] (1904–1993), designer and artist, was born on 9 November 1904 in Coronel, Chile, the tenth surviving child of David Angus (1855–1926), railway engineer, and his wife, Mary, née Wilson (1860–1939), a former teacher. Her parents were originally from Scotland...
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Artaud, William (1763–1823), portrait and history painter, was born in London on 24 March 1763, the son of Stephen Artaud, a Huguenot jeweller, and his wife, Elizabeth. He was awarded silver palettes by the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1775/6, 1777, and 1782, and from 1778 attended the ...
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William Artaud (1763–1823) self-portrait, c. 1822 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Mary Webster
Astley, John (1720–1787), portrait painter and beau, was born at Wem in Shropshire on 24 June 1720, and baptized there on 6 April 1724, a younger son of Richard Astley, surgeon, and his wife, Margaret. After attending school in Shropshire, in the early 1740s he went to ...
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Backhouse [née Holden], Margaret (bap. 1818, d. 1896), portrait and genre painter, was born at Summer Hill, near Birmingham, and baptized on 28 September 1818 at St Martin's, Birmingham, one of several children of the Revd Henry Augustus Holden (1784–1870) and his wife, ...
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Jan de Baen (1633–1702) self-portrait [with his wife, Maria de Baen] Collection Museum Bredius, The Hague
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Katharine Gibson
Baen, Jan de (1633–1702), portrait painter, was born on 20 February 1633 in Haarlem, Holland. Houbraken's life of de Baen, published within sixteen years of de Baen's death, would appear to be reliable because the artist painted a portrait of Dr Jacob Souburg...
