John Varley

Like his younger brother Cornelius, John Varley was born in Hackney and eventually made his name as a watercolorist. He began working in the studio of a portrait painter in his early teens and then pursued formal training in draftsmanship with Joseph Charles Barrow. Varley accompanied the older artist on a sketching tour of Peterborough that produced his first work exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798, a sketch of Peterborough Cathedral. Varley’s tour of Wales in 1798 or 1799 also was important to the formation of his characteristic approach to landscape painting. Despite regularly exhibiting at the RA from 1804 onward, and participation in the Old Watercolour Society as a founding member and its most prolific exhibitor, Varley’s primary source of income was as a drawing master. Many of his pupils became successful artists in their own right. He also published several treatises on landscape and drawing (1815-1820) and at least two books on astrology. The latter study, which he also explored in Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy (1828), formed the basis of his friendship with William Blake, who supplied the illustrations for Visionary Heads (1819-1820).