John Constable

John Constable RA was born in 1776 in East Bergholt, Suffolk. The landscape of East Anglia remained the touchstone of his art, and even in his lifetime the area around Dedham Vale was known as ‘Constable country’. Nevertheless, his career had been slow to take off and the importance of his art was not recognised in England until late in his life. In France, however, his naturalism and forceful painting style were key influences on Romanticism and later on Impressionism.
A devoted family man, Constable travelled very little beyond his familiar haunts. He lived much of his life in London, where he died in 1837.
David Lucas was born in 1802 in Northamptonshire and received his early training from Samuel William Reynolds. He worked with Constable on English Landscape from 1830 to 1832 and continued to make prints after Constable’s work following the painter’s death. He later fell into poverty and died in a workhouse in 1881.