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Charles Leslie

Charles Robert Leslie (1794 - 1859) was active/lived in Pennsylvania / United Kingdom, England.  Charles Leslie is known for Narrative, portrait, history and aristocratic genre painting.

Leslie, Charles Robert

Date born: October 19, 1794

Place Born: (Clerkenwell) London, United Kingdom

Date died: May 5, 1859

Place died: (St John's Wood) London, United Kingdom

Charles Robert Leslie was a genre and portrait painter and author of the first book on John Constable and one on Joshua Reynolds. Leslie's father was Robert Charles Leslie (d. 1804), a Philadelphia clockmaker who had moved to London, and his mother, Lydia Baker (Leslie) (1766/7-1824). The family returned to Philadelphia in 1799 where the younger Leslie was trained in art in New Jersey. He continued study at the University of Pennsylvania, still only age ten.

After his father's death, Leslie was apprenticed in 1808 to the Philadelphia publishing firm of Bradford and Inskeep. Samuel T. Bradford, a senior partner, saw to it that Leslie studied in London, and in Bradford's capacity as director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, that Leslie's watercolors hung at the   ...  [Displaying 1000 of 3545 characters.]  Artist bio

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Facts about Charles Leslie

   Charles Leslie  Born:  1794 - London, England
Died:   1859 - London, England
Known for:  Narrative, portrait, history and aristocratic genre painting

Biography from the Archives of askART

Leslie, Charles Robert

Date born: October 19, 1794

Place Born: (Clerkenwell) London, United Kingdom

Date died: May 5, 1859

Place died: (St John's Wood) London, United Kingdom

Charles Robert Leslie was a genre and portrait painter and author of the first book on John Constable and one on Joshua Reynolds. Leslie's father was Robert Charles Leslie (d. 1804), a Philadelphia clockmaker who had moved to London, and his mother, Lydia Baker (Leslie) (1766/7-1824). The family returned to Philadelphia in 1799 where the younger Leslie was trained in art in New Jersey. He continued study at the University of Pennsylvania, still only age ten.

After his father's death, Leslie was apprenticed in 1808 to the Philadelphia publishing firm of Bradford and Inskeep. Samuel T. Bradford, a senior partner, saw to it that Leslie studied in London, and in Bradford's capacity as director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, that Leslie's watercolors hung at the annual exhibition of 1811.

Leslie studied with Benjamin West and Washington Allston in London with fellow art student Samuel F. B. Morse. He remained in London, marrying the British subject Harriet Honor Stone (1799-1879) in 1825. Leslie spent an unhappy year as a teacher in 1833-1834 in West Point, NY. He returned to England to witness and paint Queen Victoria's coronation. Various small landscapes followed.

After the death of his friend, the painter John Constable, Leslie collected materials and wrote the first biography on the painter, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable in 1843. A second edition appeared in 1845. Leslie was appointed professor of painting at the Royal Academy in 1847 through 1852 and published Handbook for Young Painters in 1854, a compilation of his lectures there.

As an art theorist, Leslie followed the precepts of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He had largely completed his autobiography and was at work on a biography of Reynolds when he died at his home in London in 1859. He is buried in Kensal Green cemetery, London. Leslie's biography was completed in 1865, appearing as The Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Source:
"Charles Robert Leslie", Dictionary of Art Historians, www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/lesliec.htm


Biography from the Archives of askART

Charles Robert Leslie was born in London in 1794.  The son of American parents, he was raised in Philadelphia, where he studied under Thomas Sully.  He returned to London in 1811 and studied with Benjamin West and Washington Allston and shared rooms with Samuel B Morse before traveling abroad with Charles Willson Peale, Allston and Gilbert Stuart Newton.

Leslie entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1813.  He exhibited 78 works at the Royal Academy, where he was elected in 1826, and 11 works at the British Institute. His subjects were portraits, historical and contemporary genre subjects, the latter taken from a wide range of sources including Shakespeare, Swift, Moliere, Cervantes and Scott.

Besides painting, Charles Leslie was also a writer including published biographies of his great English friends and painters, John Constable, and J M W Turner.  He was also a friend of Charles Dickens, whose portrait he painted.

Many of Leslie's works were painted for some of the great collectors of the Victorian age, and he was commissioned by Queen Victoria to paint a scene of her coronation, which now hangs in Windsor Castle.

Source:
The Cider House Galleries, Ltd.


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