Charles locke eastlake biography facts

After a period as keeper , he was the first director of the National Gallery. Eastlake was born in Plymouth , Devon , the fourth son of an Admiralty lawyer. He was educated at local grammar schools in Plymouth and, briefly, at Charterhouse then still in London. He was committed to becoming a painter, and in he became the first pupil of Benjamin Haydon and a student at the Royal Academy schools in London—where he later exhibited.

Sir Charles Lock Eastlake PRA (17

Like many other people at the time, Eastlake had hired a boat to take him to the ship on which Napoleon was held captive in Plymouth harbour. He sketched him from the boat. In , he travelled to Rome where he painted members of the British elite staying in Italy including fellow artists Sir Thomas Lawrence and J. He also travelled to Naples and Athens.

Despite being based predominantly in mainland Europe, Eastlake regularly sent works back to London to be exhibited, and in he was elected a member of the Royal Academy. Three years later, he returned to England permanently where he continued to paint historic and biblical paintings set in Mediterranean landscapes. While he had been abroad his painting Lord Byron's Dream was exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition.

Margaret Hutton. These publications and Eastlake's reputation as an artist led to his nomination in to become secretary of the Fine Arts Commission, the body in charge of government art patronage. He set up home in Fitzroy Square. Eastlake, the painter and gallery inspector, furnished his countrymen, in , with such an excellent translation of Goethe's theory of color that it is a perfect reproduction of the original and reads more easily; in fact, it is understood more easily than the original.

Having already advised the National Gallery, London on acquisitions, he was appointed the Gallery's second Keeper in , a post he later resigned "in consequence of an unfortunate purchase that roused much animadversion, a portrait erroneously ascribed to Holbein".