Explore: Charles Calvert

(1785 - 1852)

Charles Calvert was born at Glossop Hall, Derbyshire; the son of an amateur artist and land agent to the Duke of Norfolk's estate in Derbyshire. He was eleven when his father died. He abandoned an apprenticeship in the cotton trade, to train as a landscape painter and was instrumental in the foundation of the Manchester Royal Institution (later Manchester City Art Gallery). He gained the Heywood gold medal for a landscape in oil and silver medal for a watercolour landscape. He exhibited only two works in London. Calvert devoted much of his time to teaching and spent the remainder painting in the Lake District. Although confined to his bed in later years, he continued to paint landscapes from memory. He died at Bowness, Westmorland, aged 66.