author
Best known for his beautifully observed sketches of the River Thames, this little-known English artist and writer brought an architect’s eye and a traveler’s patience to places, streets, and waterside scenes. His work has a calm, documentary charm that makes everyday landscapes feel memorable.
R. Sharpley was Reginald Sharpley, an English artist, illustrator, and author associated with The Thames: A Sketch-Book. Sources on his life are limited, but they consistently place him in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and connect him with landscape drawing, painting, and printmaking.
Sharpley is described by art and local-history sources as having trained first as a civil engineer before studying art in London. He served in the Coldstream Guards during the First World War, and later lived in Chipping Campden and Minchinhampton, where he continued to draw, paint, and make prints. Exhibition notes also credit him with showing work at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham.
For readers, his appeal lies in the clarity and atmosphere of his topographical work. The Thames: A Sketch-Book captures the river and its towns with an eye for structure, place, and quiet detail, preserving scenes of England with both artistic skill and a sense of record.