The directory «Artists»

Carmichael John Wilson
(1800—1868)

English painter, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 9 January 1800. His father was a ship’s carpenter and as a youth he was apprenticed to a shipbuilder. It is possible that he spent a period at sea but he had already established his painting workshop at the age of 23, when he shared premises with the landscape painter Thomas Richardson Senior in Blackett Street, Newcastle. It has been suggested that Richardson may have been his teacher. Carmichael did not remain long in Newcastle but chose to travel throughout Italy. By 1847 he had returned to Britain and set up his studio in London. He was very prolific and a regular exhibitor of marine works at both the Royal Academy (1835–59) and the British Institution (1846–62). He returned to sea to participate officially in the Baltic theatre of the Crimean War in both 1854 and 1855 and much of his work there was published as engravings in the Illustrated London News.

Gambia, 2001, HMS «Victory» off the Isle of Wight