Henry Bright

1810 - 1873

Bright was born in Saxmundham, Suffolk, the third son of a clockmaker, and Susannah Denny, of Alburgh in Norfolk. Apprenticed to a chemist in Woodbridge, he transferred Norwich and dispensed at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. His artistic talent was spotted and he became a pupil of Alfred Stannard, also being trained by John Berney Crome and John Sell Cotman, both members of the Norwich Society of Artists. In about 1833, Bright to Saxmundham and married, three years later moving to London, where his wife Eliza died in 1848. Ten years later he returned to Saxmundham, continuing to visit London for exhibitions. Throughout his career he maintained links with the artists of the Norwich School of Artists. Bright travelled and painted around the UK and Europe and is described as accompanying J M W Turner as a logistics organiser and accompanying artist on some of these tours. His work was also praised by John Ruskin, and as well as Turner he was a friend of many of the great landscape artists of the time. Up to the 1840s he was a member of the New Watercolour Society, later resigning and pursuing oil painting and paper works in chalks and crayons.