Historical Art: Itinerant Artists, LRAHM

(1830-1855)
Painters in a pioneer community like London found few available opportunities to successfully pursue their craft. In order to survive, it was necessary to travel and seek landscape and portrait commissions and give art lessons to those patrons who could afford to pay. Some more fortunate artists held military or surveying positions where travel was an integral part of pursuing their job and they had an unique opportunity to paint in many different venues. Others, a small number with independent financial means, chose to wander far and near in search of ideal subject matter. Outside London in its hinterland, the itinerant period lasted several decades beyond 1855.

The section documents the background and work of John Herbert Caddy, George Russell Dartnell, Edmund Gilling Hallewell and Peter Valentine Wood who were military artists; George Theodore Berthon, James Wandesforde, Ezekiel Sexton and Robert Reginald Whale who actively sought out commissions in the area; Frederick Lucas Foster who was a land surveyor; and William Nicoll Cresswell and James Duncan who were constantly seeking new subject material