John Varley OWS

1778 - 1842

Born in the Old Blue Post Tavern, Hackney, John Varley was apprenticed to a silversmith and then a portrait painter, before attending evening drawing classes with Joseph Barrow. By 1798, he had become a proficient enough topographical draughtsman to exhibit at the Royal Academy. In 1799, he first visited North Wales, where he studied sublime landscapes that would influence the entire course of his art. In 1805, he was a founder member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, where he exhibited over 700 works. Varley is an unsung hero of British watercolour painting, an immensely gifted watercolourist and perhaps the greatest teacher of the age, who took the torch from Thomas Girtin at his untimely death in 1802, and passed it on to better known figures such as David Cox, Samuel Palmer and Peter De Wint, as well as W H Hunt, William Turner of Oxford, Copley Fielding, William Mulready and John Linnell, while also being part of William Blake's world. Varley's generosity as a teacher and early 19th-century influencer was matched only by his prolifigacy and inability to manage his finances. Although the greatest figure of British watercolour painting in the early 19th century was J M W Turner, it might be argued that his dominant and unique skills and styles provided something of a dead-end in terms of the development of his contemporaries, until his followers emerged later in his career. In contrast, Girtin and Varley founded a tradition of watercolour painting which, through the members of the ... show more

Born in the Old Blue Post Tavern, Hackney, John Varley was apprenticed to a silversmith and then a portrait painter, before attending evening drawing classes with Joseph Barrow. By 1798, he had become a proficient enough topographical draughtsman to exhibit at the Royal Academy. In 1799, he first visited North Wales, where he studied sublime landscapes that would influence the entire course of his art. In 1805, he was a founder member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, where he exhibited over 700 works. Varley is an unsung hero of British watercolour painting, an immensely gifted watercolourist and perhaps the greatest teacher of the age, who took the torch from Thomas Girtin at his untimely death in 1802, and passed it on to better known figures such as David Cox, Samuel Palmer and Peter De Wint, as well as W H Hunt, William Turner of Oxford, Copley Fielding, William Mulready and John Linnell, while also being part of William Blake's world. Varley's generosity as a teacher and early 19th-century influencer was matched only by his prolifigacy and inability to manage his finances. Although the greatest figure of British watercolour painting in the early 19th century was J M W Turner, it might be argued that his dominant and unique skills and styles provided something of a dead-end in terms of the development of his contemporaries, until his followers emerged later in his career. In contrast, Girtin and Varley founded a tradition of watercolour painting which, through the members of the

watercolour societies, became widespread in the early 19th century and lasted well into the 20th century.