John Warwick Smith

The Castle at Abergavenny, hand-coloured engraving after Smith, c. 1790

John "Warwick" Smith (26 July 1749 – 22 March 1831) was a British watercolour landscape painter and illustrator. The fortunate social connection allowed him to study art under the animal painter Sawrey Gilpin.

Becoming known as a skilful topographical draughtsman, he was employed on Samuel Middiman's Select Views in Great Britain, and obtained the patronage of George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, which enabled him to travel to Italy between 1776 and 1781. In 1783 he married Elizabeth Gerrard – still a minor – at St Mary's church, Warwick. He visited Italy again in 1785–6, this time in the company of Lord Warwick.

Other books illustrated with engravings after works by Smith include Select Views in Italy (1792–6); Views of the Lakes of Cumberland, with twenty aquatints by James Merigot (1791–5); William Byrne's Britannia Depicta and William Sotheby's Tour through Wales (1794).

Smith moved to London in 1807. In that year he began exhibiting with Watercolour Society, which he had joined two years before. He remained a major contributor to its exhibitions until 1823, when he resigned his membership. He was elected president of the society in 1814, 1817, and 1818, secretary in 1816, and treasurer in 1819, 1821, and 1822.

Smith died in Middlesex Place, London, on 22 March 1831, and was interred in the St George's burial-ground in the Uxbridge Road.