William Craig, Landscape Painter in Water-colour
(b. 1829, d. 1875)
Landscape Painter in Water-colour
From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913
Was born in Dublin on 11th December, 1829. He was admitted to the Royal Dublin Society's School in 1847, and in the same year began to exhibit at the Royal Hibernian Academy, where he was a regular contributor of landscape drawings until 1862. In 1863 he went to America and became one of the original members of the American Society of Water-colour Painters. Some of his works exhibited in America were views of Irish scenery, such as "The Upper Vale of Killarney," exhibited in 1869, and "O'Sullivan's Cascade" in 1872. He was accidentally drowned in Lake George on 26th August, 1875. Craig's early pictures were admirable specimens of the art, tender yet brilliant in tone and possessed of that peculiar transparency of colouring which is so noticeable in the works of the English School. Of late, however, he painted almost exclusively for auction-dealers, and his work appeared to lose in quality as it increased in quantity, which was unfortunate, as he was unquestionably a man of genius ("Art Journal," October, 1875).
« James Coyle | Contents and Search | Bartholomew Cramillion »