Edward Calvert (painter)
Edward Calvert (20 September 1799 – 14 July 1883) was an English printmaker and painter.
Biography
[edit]Early life
[edit]Edward Calvert was born in Appledore, near Bideford in Devon, the son of Captain Roland Calvert.[1][2] After a spell in the Navy he studied art at Plymouth and the Royal Academy Schools (1824). His early visionary work was greatly inspired by William Blake, and he became a member of the Blake-influenced group known as The Ancients which met at Samuel Palmer's in Shoreham, Kent in the later 1820s and early 1830s.
Work
[edit]Amongst Calvert's finest works are exquisite miniature wood engravings which date from this early period; his wood and copper engravings all date from 1827–31, but were only seen by friends until published by his son in 1893 in an edition of 350.[3] He also made etchings. In 1844 he visited Greece.
Personal life and later years
[edit]Much of his subsequent life was spent with his wife Mary, in Dalston and nearby Hackney, a short distance from London. His work from this later period (not considered his best) shows a Classical influence.
Edward Calvert and his wife are buried at Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, London; the headstone reads He was welcomed in Helicon.
Legacy
[edit]The British Museum has some 65 of his drawings, and about 40 prints, as well as many of the printing blocks and plates for them.[4]
His third son, Samuel Calvert, was an artist and engraver active in Australia and produced a memoir of his father in 1893.[5][6]
Notes
[edit]- ^ not the other Appledore, Devon: Appledore, Mid Devon, near Tiverton.
- ^ Mr. John Calvert, Table Talk (Melbourne), 1 August 1890, page 13.
- ^ British Museum biography
- ^ British Museum online collection database
- ^ "Calvert, Samuel, A memoir of Edward Calvert, artist, 1893". Yale Center for British Art. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
- ^ Literature: An Unknown Artist, The Australasian (Melbourne), 2 December 1893, page 36.
