Richard Parkes Bonington (25 October 1802 - 23 September 1828) was an English Romantic landscape painter.
One of the most influential British artists of his time, the facility of his style was inspired by the old masters, yet was entirely modern in its application.
Richard Parkes Bonington was born in the town of Arnold, a suburb of Nottingham in England. His father was successively a gaoler, a drawing master and lace-maker, and his mother a teacher. Bonington learned watercolour painting from his father and exhibited paintings at the Liverpool Academy at age 11.
In 1817, Bonington's family moved to Calais, France where his father had set up a lace factory.
At this time, Bonington started taking lessons from the painter François Louis Thomas Francia, who trained him in English watercolour painting.
His first paintings were exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1822. He also began to work in lithography, illustrating Baron Taylor’s "Voyages pittoresques dans l'ancienne France" and his own architectural series "Restes et Fragmens". In 1824, he won a gold medal at the Paris Salon along with John Constable and Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding.
Bonington died of tuberculosis on 28 September 1828 at 29 Tottenham Street in London, only 25 years old. - wikipedia
