Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy.
Sir Peter Thomas Blake is an English pop artist. He co-created the sleeve design for the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. His other works include the covers for two of The Who's albums, the cover of the Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", and the Live Aid concert poster. Blake also designed the 2012 Brit Award statuette.
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson, later known as Lady Butler, was a British painter who specialised in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars. Her notable works include The Roll Call, The Defence of Rorke's Drift, and Scotland Forever!. She wrote about her military paintings in an autobiography published in 1922: "I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism." She was married to British Army officer William Butler, becoming Lady Butler after he was knighted.
Jack Vettriano is a Scottish painter. His 1992 painting The Singing Butler became a best-selling image in Britain.
Events from the year 1962 in art.
Francis John Minton was an English painter, illustrator, stage designer and teacher. After studying in France, he became a teacher in London, and at the same time maintained a consistently large output of works. In addition to landscapes, portraits and other paintings, some of them on an unusually large scale, he built up a reputation as an illustrator of books.
Captain Sir William Alexander Dargie was a renowned Australian painter, known especially for his portrait paintings. He won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on eight separate occasions; a record held since 1952.
Dame Laura Knight was an English artist who worked in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and drypoint. Knight was a painter in the figurative, realist tradition, who embraced English Impressionism. In her long career, Knight was among the most successful and popular painters in Britain. Her success in the male-dominated British art establishment paved the way for greater status and recognition for women artists.
The Royal Society of Portrait Painters is a charity based at Carlton House Terrace, SW1, London that promotes the practice and appreciation of portraiture art.
Christian Furr is an English painter. In 1995 he was commissioned to paint Queen Elizabeth II.
Bryan Organ is a British artist considered one of the leading and most innovative English portrait painters of the 20th century. His paintings have included portraits of prominent public figures and of members of the British royal family. Organ is also known for landscape paintings, such as St Pancras Station,, and lithographic studies of animals (Tate). London's National Portrait Gallery holds a total of sixteen of his portraits of which six were commissioned by the Gallery's Trustees.
John Ronald Craigie Aitchison CBE RSA RA was a Scottish painter. He was best known for his many paintings of the Crucifixion, one of which hangs behind the altar in the chapter house of Liverpool Cathedral, Italian landscapes, and portraits. His simple style with bright, childlike colours defied description, and was compared to the Scottish Colourists, primitivists or naive artists, although Brian Sewell dismissed him as "a painter of too considered trifles".
Frederick John Pym Gore CBE RA, was an English painter.
Anna Katrina Zinkeisen was a Scottish painter and artist.
Thomas Uwins was a British portrait, subject, genre and landscape painter in watercolour and oil, and a book illustrator. He became a full member of the Old Watercolour Society and a Royal Academician, and held a number of high-profile art appointments including the librarian of the Royal Academy, Surveyor of Pictures to Queen Victoria and the Keeper of the National Gallery.
Hew Donald Joseph Locke is a British sculptor and contemporary visual artist based in Brixton, London. In 2000 he won a Paul Hamlyn Award and the EASTinternational Award. He grew up in Guyana, but lived most of his adult life in London.
Philip Sutton, RA is a British artist active since the 1950s, best known for his large and highly coloured paintings of landscape, flowers and people.
Carl Randall is a British figurative painter, whose work is based on images of modern Japan and London.
Charles Harris is a British painter, art instructor and teacher.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – An 80th Birthday Portrait is a 2005 oil painting of Queen Elizabeth II by Rolf Harris, commissioned by the BBC for the Queen's 80th birthday. It was unveiled at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace and publicly displayed there from 2005 to 2006. A BBC television special about its creation, The Queen, by Rolf, was broadcast on BBC One on 1 January 2006. The painting was voted the second-most-favoured portrait of the Queen by the British public, but it was critically derided.
