John Henry Campbell 1757-1828

SOLD

River Landscape with Figures

Oil on canvas, 48.5 x 64 cm

John Henry Campbell was educated at the Dublin Society Schools before establishing himself as a topographical landscape artist, working in both oils and watercolours. He first exhibited in Dublin at Allen’s, 32 Dame Street in 1800, and later contributed to the Royal Hibernian Academy's inaugural exhibition in 1826. In his final years Campbell worked predominantly in county Wicklow, depicting views of Bray and the Meeting of the Waters on the Avoca, and exhibited ‘View looking up Bray River’ (number 161) at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1828. On stylistic grounds this painting is almost certainly a later work by the artist, enclosed in its original Dublin frame of the pattern favoured by Campbell, and most likely a view within county Wicklow. Well-known for his watercolour depictions of Dublin’s environs and neighbouring counties, Campbell’s works in oil are typically more ambitious in composition and detail, and as per Crookshank and Glin, ‘they prefigure the romanticism of [James Arthur] O'Connor.’