Algernon Newton

Algernon Cecil Newton (1880 - 1968)

British painter, born in London, grandson of one of the founders of Winsor & Newton, the firm of artists' colourmen. He left Clare College, Cambridge, after two years without taking a degree and then studied at various art colleges in London, including the School of Animal Painting in Kensington run by Frank Calderon (1865–1943). Newton specialized in urban views painted in a sombre, naturalistic style; his penchant for scenes involving waterways earned him the nickname ‘the Canaletto of the canals’ (The Surrey Canal, Camberwell, 1935, Tate). He also painted landscapes in Cornwall and Yorkshire and was in demand for ‘portraits’ of country houses. Generally he worked from sketches done on the spot and occasional photographs. In his obituary in The Times he is described as ‘a painter of quiet distinction…He could take the most forbidding canal or group of factory buildings, and, without romanticizing or shrinking any detail, create a poetic and restful composition out of it.

Text source: A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art