Regency Personalities Series-John Clayton

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency (I include those who were born before 1811 and who died after 1795), today I continue with one of the many period notables.

John Clayton
1728- 23 June 1800

John Clayton belonged to a family living at Bush Hill, Edmonton. He was the brother of Samuel Clayton of Old Park, Enfield, and uncle of Nicholas Clayton. He was brought up to be a doctor, and served his time with the surgeon Samuel Sharp; but he did not manage to advance in the medical profession, and took up painting.

The form of art he adopted was still life, especially fruit and flower pieces, painting both in oil and water-colours; he occasionally painted landscapes. Clayton exhibited in 1761 and the following years at the Free Society of Artists in the Strand, London, However by 1767 he had become a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, and was one of those who signed the society’s roll declaration on its incorporation by charter in 1765. He continued to exhibit with them.

He lived in the Piazza, Covent Garden. In March 1769 a disastrous and extensive fire broke out which destroyed one side of the Piazza, and most of Clayton’s best pictures were destroyed in the fire. After this he seems to have given up art, and retired, having married, to his brother’s house at Enfield, where he devoted himself to gardening and music. He exhibited again in 1778. Clayton died on 23 June 1800 at Enfield, in his seventy-third year, leaving two sons and one daughter.

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Regency Personalities Series-Society of Artists of Great Britain

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

Society of Artists of Great Britain
1765-1791

Society of Artists of Great Britain was founded in London in May 1761 by an association of artists in order to provide a venue for the public exhibition of recent work by living artists, such as was having success in the long-established Paris salons. Leading members seceded from the society in 1768, a move leading directly to the formation of the Royal Academy of Arts. The society was dissolved 1791 after years of decline.

The Society of Artists of Great Britain began in 1760 as a loose association of artists, including Joshua Reynolds and Francis Hayman, who wanted greater control by artists over exhibitions of their work previously organised by William Shipley’s Society of Arts (founded in 1754). The new society organised their first exhibition in April 1760 and over one thousand visitors per day attended. The following year they held their second exhibition at Christopher Cock’s Auction Rooms in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, and “In a conspicuous gesture they called themselves the Society of Artists of Great Britain to emphasise their identity with the ‘nation’ and to announce a clear split with Shipley’s faction.” Some 13,000 people bought a copy of the catalogue for the 1761 exhibition which featured a frontispiece designed by William Hogarth depicting Britannia watering three trees marked Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

In 1765, the Society, then comprising 211 members, obtained a Royal Charter as the “Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain”.

Reynolds would later be a founder of the Royal Academy of Arts, after an unseemly leadership dispute between two leading architects, Sir William Chambers and James Paine had split the Society. Paine won, but Chambers used his strong connections with George III to create the new body – the Royal Academy of Arts was formally launched in 1769. However, the Society of Artists of Great Britain continued its schedule of exhibitions until 1791, while those who remained with the older “Society of Arts” now called themselves the “Free Society of Artists” (1761–1783).

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