John Sell Cotman

Born in Norwich in 1782, he was expected to join the family business but showed an early talent for art instead. He moved to London as a teenager, exhibited at the Royal Academy, and became associated with important artists and patrons before building his reputation as one of the most distinctive landscape painters of his time.

He is especially remembered for watercolours and prints that turn architecture, waterways, and open country into clear, balanced designs. His work is closely linked with the Norwich School of painters, and critics have often noted the way he simplified natural forms into strong shapes and cool, controlled colour.

Later in his career, he taught drawing and continued to produce etchings and illustrations as well as paintings. He died in London in 1842, but his views of Norfolk, Yorkshire, and Normandy helped secure his place as one of the great British watercolour artists of the early nineteenth century.