Albany Fine Art : Biography of William CALLOW, RWS FRGS

William CALLOW, RWS FRGS

British 1812-1908

Callow William Callow

by Unknown Artist
© National Portrait Gallery

Landscape, architectural and marine-scape painter, drawing master to the French royal family, and the recognised heir of the school of painting epitomised by Samuel Prout

William Callow was born in Greenwich in east London in 1812, the son of a carpenter and builder. His father encouraged him to pursue art and, in 1823, at the age of 11, he was apprenticed to the engraver and landscape painter Theodore Henry Fielding (British, 1781-1851), in Newman Street, central London, where he studied watercolour drawing and aquatint engraving for the next eight years. During this period his fellow apprentice Charles Bentley, OWS (British, 1806–1854) gave Callow his first painting lessons and they became lifelong friends; and Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding, POWS (British, 1787–1855) took an interest in his progress and encouraged him to persevere with his studies.

In 1829 Callow left for Paris at the invitation of Theodore Fielding’s brother, Thales Fielding, AOWS (British, 1793–1837), to work for the publisher J F d'Ostervald. However, the events of the July Revolution of 1830, which saw the overthrow of King Charles X, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascension of his cousin Louis-Philippe, the Duc d'Orléans, forced Callow back to Britain.

He returned to Paris in 1831 where he shared a studio with Thomas Shotter Boys, NWS (British, 1803–1874) and came under the influence of Richard Parkes Bonington (British, 1802–1828). Five years later, he took over the studio from Boys, exhibited his first of many works at the Paris Salon in 1834 and was invited by King Louis-Philippe I of France to teach drawing to his two sons and daughter (1834-41). Thereafter Callow built up a large and profitable teaching practice amongst the French nobility.

During this time Callow began the first of many long walking and sketching holidays. Over the next eight years he travelled extensively throughout Europe: the south of England (1835), south of France (1836), Switzerland and Germany (1838), Italy (1840), northern France (1841), the Rhine and Moselle regions of Germany (1844), Holland (1845) and Switzerland, Germany and Italy (1846). His style as a landscape artist was always that of the topographer and his draughtsmanship always exact whilst his marine subjects generally show rather greater freedom.

In 1838 Callow was elected AOWS. This encouraged him to return to London in 1841 and establish himself as a drawing master. He repeated his earlier success in Paris and built up an aristocratic and influential clientele. He continued in this role until 1882. Callow was elected OWS in 1848. He exhibited regularly at the Old Watercolour Society from 1838, where he exhibited some 1,400 works, at the British Institute from 1848–1867, and showed 29 works at the Royal Academy between 1850-1876, mainly European landscapes. About two years before his death he sold his portfolios of early works which sold so well that he held an exhibition of them at the Leicester Galleries in 1907.

He moved to Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire in 1855 and lived and worked there until his death at the great age of 96, in 1908. Christie's held a studio sale of his work on 21st March 1910.

Callow is recognised as the Victorian heir of the picturesque topographical school of painting epitomised by Samuel Prout (British, 1783-1852).