Cotmania. Vol. I. 1926-7

JOHN SELL COTMAN (1782-1842), landscape painter and etcher, is one of the chief ornaments not only of the Norwich School, but of British art. Much of his work is topographical, but carried out with a sense of beauty, an instinctive rightness in the use of his materials, and impeccable taste in colour, which raises it far above the accomplishment of the average topographical draughtsman. Born and educated at Norwich, he went up early to London, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1800. In 1807 he returned to Norwich, where he became in 1811 president of the local society of artists. He resided for a time, from about 1812, at Yarmouth, and between 1817 and 1820 paid repeated visits to Normandy, making studies for the "Architectural Antiquities" which appeared in 1822. A later series of his etchings (1838) is entitled "Liber Studiorum." He was in constant employment as a teacher of drawing, and in 1834 became drawing master to King's College, residing from that year onwards in London, till his death on July 24th 1842.

The British Museum possesses a very fine drawing collection of Cotman's work, including three hundred drawings in monochrome, in addition to numerous watercolours, The specimens of his work in colour here reproduced are chiefly early in date, Postwick Grove being much later than the rest.
CAMPBELL DODGSON

B175. Sarcophagus in a Park.
B176. Screen in Norwich Cathedral (South Transept).
B177. Greta Bridge.
B178. The Mumbles, Swansea.
B179. Mountain Pass in the Tyrol.
B180. Postwick Grove.