Thomas Girtin

Thomas Girtin was born to an artisan family in south London and, from his early years, was taught to paint and draw. He served an apprenticeship with the topographical artist Edward Dayes and, as a teenager, toured the English midlands with the antiquarian James Moore, studying Gothic cathedrals. He began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1794, and made several tours to North Wales. He is credited with elevating watercolor from a topographical to a more expressive form, and, with J. M. W. Turner, inventing the Romantic watercolor. Girtin’s promising career was cut short by ill health; he died at the age of 27.