John Constable

Born in East Bergholt, Suffolk on the 11th of June 1776 John Constable showed great interest in art at a young age. He went to London after completing a year of apprenticeship at his father’s flour mill. Born to a wealthy family with his father being a successful mill owner and operator he showed interest in art only in his early twenties. In 1799 he studied painting in London where he suffered bouts of homesickness that he focused more into reading and practicing art, drawing and sketching away his longing for home. He showed his first landscape paintings in 1802 and returned home to develop his own distinctive style of drawing and laying out landscapes. Most of his work focused on the areas in the Stour Valley where he grew up combined with the frequent trips to the English countryside that allowed him to explore and develop more his landscape style.