John Nicholson Fine Art

Description

watercolour, 5"x7" signed

Charles Edmund Rowbotham was the eldest son of Thomas Charles Leeson Rowbotham (1823-1875, landscape and marine painter) and grandson of Thomas Leeson Scarse Rowbotham (1783-1853, also a landscape and marine painter). Charles began his career by painting the figures in his father’s landscapes.

Rowbotham exhibited from 1877 at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour, Royal Society of British Artists, Royal Hibernian Academy, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, Manchester City Art Gallery, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Dudley Gallery and the Royal Society of Artists, Birmingham.

When his watercolour, Near Bramber, Sussex, was shown at the Royal Society of Artists, he broke away from his family and went on a series of sketching tours. In 1884 he married, and with his wife toured Switzerland, Italy and the French Riviera. It was during this period that he produced his best work, which included his watercolours of Lake Como. His fondness for blue with white heightening is apparent is his work.

Returning to England he lived in Shepherd’s Bush and Acton until 1888 when he moved to Steyning, Sussex. From 1899 he lived in Brighton and from 1913 in Croydon.