John Warwick Smith

John Warwick Smith was an English watercolor painter, born at Irthington in Cumberland.  He learned drawing from Captain John Bernard Gilpin, father of William Gilpin, the travel writer and amateur artist who helped motivate artists to travel to Wales in search of picturesque views.  Smith had been on the Grand Tour before the outbreak of war, and was familiar with continental conventions.  However, beginning in the 1780s, Smith made regular trips to North and South Wales and painted prolifically.